Outdoor temperature range for tomato plants?

[CLa]

Whats the range that will not harm my seedlings, will they be ok over 35F? I was thinking of putting them out in the full sun for a few days or until another frost comes, which may never happen. They have been in a room at consistent temperatures around 55-65, (now around 73)

[feldon30]

I will not leave my tomato plants out if evening temps are low 40's. And absolutely not in the 30's. I don't want them to be set back developmentally.

There are of course microclimates, and if the plants are right next to the house and shielded somehow, it might stay 2-3 degrees warmer than if they were in the middle of the yard. It depends if you have backup plants and/or if you can buy tomato plants locally if yours get injured.

I did just take a peek at Alexandria, La. weather at WUnderground.com and this week looks fantastic for slowly hardening them off.

The week or two of hardening off plants is a real pain.

Tonight, I am leaving the plants out under a screened in canopy since evening temps will not be dipping below 55.

Check out my "Houston Progress" thread for more details.

[kwselke]

Last year I gave a friend in College Station, TX a six-pack of starts in early March. Two weeks later he emailed me that his plants were dead. He blamed it on the TV weatherman that predicted that it would only get down to 40 one night, and the temperature dropped to 32. I had additional starts on hand for him, but told him that if the low is predicted to be less than 50 to bring the plants inside at night. Winds have done more damage to my baby plants than the actual low temperatures.

[feldon30]

I never listen to TV weather.

I check both WUnderground.com and Weather.com.

WUnderground.com is almost always more pessimistic than most other sites as far as cool temps, so I use it as my guide for evening lows. For daily highs, I find Weather.com to be more accurate.

[Tomstrees]

I can admit I jumped the gun last year ...

After having "wonderfull" temps in zone 6 towards the end of April - I set out my plants first week of May ...

2 days after I planted them - the temps. dropped to 35F for 4-5 days (daytime temps were higher) !!!
I was freaking out at night as I watched the temps dip below 40F !!!

I though all was lost ... I thought about wrapping the cages with white garbage bags ... but just as I was going to do it , the temps came back up to 45F-50F at night...

The only thing I noticed was leaf damage to the plants (wrinkled leaves etc.). But after a couple days, they bounced back and all was well.

I'd have to say without protection, they seemed to "handle" the weather up to 35F - any more and they would have been gonners ~

But yeah; this year ? I'm both starting plants later and setting them out later ... I know the weather can "turn" in the flip of a switch - but I'm not going to try that "early-planting" thing again ~

I do have some dwarf plants with fruit to hold me over ~ :wink:

Tom

[nctomatoman]

I've had thousands of young seedlings outside down to 34 degrees with no cover - in fact, probably down to 33 -and down to 30 deg under floating row cover (as someone above says, heavy wind - and, especially, wind driven cold rain, are more damaging) - they come through just fine. The key is that they are sufficiently hardened off.

[montanamato]

I second Craig....I have had seedlings exposed to 30's and 90's during the hardening off and early plant out process...Over 20 years and countless seedlings, I could count on one hand how many didn't bounce back quickly.
Seedlings are really tougher than you think, and over babying doesn't help, they have to go into the real world eventually...

Jeanne

[bugsy]

hehe, we're still talking tomatoes right?

[cdntomato]

And I'll ditto Craig and Jeanne.

Jennifer, not into too much fussing about temps in the Great White North

[nctomatoman]

I get ya, Bugsy - we could be talking about our kids!