“How do I grow tomatoes when it’s hot enough to boil an egg outside?”

It comes from Poenie from South Africa.

“Kacper I need tips on how to grow tomatoes in hothouse,with tempratures of 40C outside. What is the best temprature in a hothouse? Whice cultivar do i plant? I live South Africa in the Northen Cape, it is HOT here!

Please can u help????
Poenie”
Poenie, you’re doing the right thing by keeping your tomatoes in a hothouse, but in these temperatures it can also become very dangerous for the tomatoes. Over exposure to UV and intense sunlight can quite simply scortch your tomatoes dry.

The best temperatures for tomatoes are from 18C to 26C, once you get above 30C that’s the danger zone for the tomatoes.
Why? Well, for one, if its hot and intense UV rays are pounding those tomatoes, the humidity in the air acts like a magnifying glass so it just burns them more intensily. If they don’t have enough water they’ll simply die from getting burnt.

Two, the humidity around the tomato plant during the day can cause problems at night when the temperature is cooler and some of that water vapour turns to a water residue around the blant, inviting all kinds of molds to grow on the tomato(mold loves tomato)

Your tomato plants and keel over and die quickly

What is the solution?

1. You need to protect those tomatoes from the intense UVs during the most intense daylight hours.

Obviously, the tomato plant needs some sunshine, although, it will be getting it alot there anyway.

However, During the intense UV times between 11AM and 3PM, you can cover the greenhouse with a tarp or something to shade out the sun, I highly recommend this. (My grandfather would do this religiously during the hot summers)

This will also help regulate the temperature in the greenhouse as well.
2. Keep the greenhouse WELL ventilated at all times. Tomatoes NEED fresh air, otherwise they will be struggling to grow, the air needs to be recycled constantly for them to thrive. If you can manage to get a flow of air through the greenhouse, this will make them very happy.

You can even experiment by shading out parts of the greenhouse, and seeing if you can leave it permantently shaded, so that it allows enough daylight so it’s not pitch black in there, but enough shading to reduce the temperature into the 20s or low 30s.

If you read my book “Organic Tomato Magic”, you’ll know that tomatoes are not dependant on Sunlight but more on water. They do not need masses of sunlight, contrary to popular belief.
Give them Water and Air, and some daylight and they will thrive.

Kacper

I’m sitting down soundy by my fire-place tonight, it’s dark, cold, and windy on this December night in Vancouver. There is a storm brewing off to the East from the Pacific tonight, and the wind is howling at 50 Knots.

Now… what kind of person knows the wind speed of a storm you might ask?

A sailor!

That’s right, not only am I prudent at tomato gardening, I’m also a die-hard sailor. Which means, I check the marine weather forecast every day, even if I’m not sailing… It’s a habit one picks up after learning the lesson of not checking weather before going out into the Ocean.
Now, the stories of me fighting for my life at sea are another thing and belong in a different blog… onto tomato gardening.
It just so happens that our question today deals with howling wind and cold weather… It comes from Karen from Houston City,

Karen writes:

“About a month ago I planted four tomato plants (2 varieties) in
containers hoping that I might be able to grow tomatoes thru our cold
weather in Houston. I have a tomato that’s been green for several weeks
and it keeps getting a little bigger but it doesn’t appear to be
ripening. The other 3 plants have flowers but they don’t seem to be
making tomatoes. This is my first attempt to grow tomatoes in
containers. I have pulled a few leaves off as you suggested. Do they
need any food? I bring them under the patio cover at night and cover
them with plastic bags as the wind is blowing pretty good. Help!”

Karen, your dilemma reminds me of the time I planted Zuchinni squash in September and tried to get it to grow I was just getting into gardening and was so excited about my little garden I didn’t want to wait t’ll spring and hoped for a warm October.
What you may be hoping for is a little short of a miracle, as growing tomatoes in these environments is just too difficult with those conditions, here’s why:

Tomatoes don’t like cold weather, and they definitely don’t like to be moved around too often. Moving them every night like this will either get them sick, or, it will just result in them not growing very much more than they have already.

Tomatoes CAN withstand a great deal of cold weather, even below freezing temperatures, but they won’t grow in them. Which is why so far you’ve only got one tomato.

It is possible that down in Houston you have enough sunshine during the day to create a nice greenhouse effect. So here is my immediate suggestion to save your plants, and get those few flowers you have now to turn into tomatoes.
1. Go out and get a small green-house for under $100. You can probably find one on eBay. If it fits on your patio, great. The green-house will provide shelter from the wind, and warmer temperatures during the day. If you can keep the temperature at 20 Degree Celsius on average during the day, this is good.

2. Lay some fresh soil in the greehouse with tomato food in it.
3. Put the pots in the greenhouse on the soil, BUT, cut out the bottom from the pot. This will allow the plant’s roots to go deeper and suck more nutrients.

Yes, you should also feed the plants tomato food at least twice a week during water. If you go to the local gardening store, there should be pre-made “tomato food” there. This is the best quick solution for the situation.

Finally, if you want to maximize your tomato harvest I highly recommend you learn about tomato grooming, it’s what I mainly concentrate on in my book as it is THE biggest secret to success with tomatoes.

I hope this helps There’s a lot more too it of course, but it would be too much to write in just one post!
Look foward to more articles on growing tomatoes soon on this blog, I will be posting lots!

~~~~~~ ABOUT THE AUTHOR ~~~~~~

Kacper Postawski is that author of “Organic Tomato Magic”
an eBook that helps gardeners get the “street smart”
know-how about growing tomatoes, stop losing their
tomatoes to disease, AND DOUBLE their harvest with a
very simple yet overlooked secret to optimizing
Tomato plants…

Click here to read the book today, you might be kicking
yourself later for not finding this out!
You have the right to distribute and use this article as you wish,
share it with friends or post it on your web-site. As long as you
keep the article and this section in tact.

I have been away for a long while, hence the lack of posting.  I will be posting some more articles in the upcoming few weeks.
On May 15th I will be sailing across the Atlantic with a racing crew. (Sailing is my passion)  So you probably will not hear from me for at least a month again   I will try to make up for that by posting some good information on tomatoes… and some little known “gardening” tricks that can truly make a difference in your results.

Today I want to share my favourite tomato soup recipe with you:

Once you have got your tomato harvest from growing tomatoes the right way, you’ll probably want to know what to do with all those extra tomatoes!

  One of the best things to do with your tomatoes is to make delicious organic tomato soup that you can jar and refrigirate to keep for those cold days when you can steam up a nice hot bowl of soup and spend the afternoon watching the rain drops outside while you’re nurtured by the goodness you spent days in the gardening labouring after

Believe me, I’ve searched the web far and wide for a good recipe and tried a lot of them. What I’ve finally discovered was actually almost by “accident”, and I think this is hands-down the easiest, tastiest organic tomato soup recipe on the Planet.

You’ll find it right here: http://www.JoyfulTomato.com/soup.html

Stand by for more of my articles on organic tomato gardening!

Kacper