growning tomatoes under shelter other than green house?

[pelm]

my husband has prostrate cancer. i wish to grow tomatoes but under cover. i have no space or money to buy a green house. would it be possible to grow under a polythene structure self made or get from a manufacture? i have been told that growing out in the open if very iffy.

[Alice]

Welcome to the Vine Pelm. I grow my tomatoes outdoors up against a south facing wall. They do well. These ones are Red Cherry.
If you go into personal profile you can show us where you are in the country.

[nick the grief]

Hi Pelm, Welcome to the vine.

Bob flowerdew grows some of his under a sloping sheet and if you can get them near a wall it will help as Alice says.

The advantage of the sheet is that the rain runs off and waters the roots and the tomatoes are trained at an angle so they hang down and make it easy to pick. If you search back Geordie posted a thing about growing them in buckets hanging from scaffold tubes that's another way and some one I work with adapted it to use strong black bags hung off his fence.

Hope that helps you and your hubby

[DaveInBraknell]

If you go with a dwarf bush variety you could start it under a barn type cloche until the summer then remove it and it should grow on it's own as everyone says south facing, good thing about a cloche is it will keep it warm until established and you can get relatively cheap ones these days.

After that cover it as others are saying with a sloping structure, but judging from your post I would say dwarf bush variety with a sloping piece of recycled glass or acrylic. Only caution would be weigh it down or something in case wind gets under it.

Dave