Tomatoes and rain

[Yasminh14]

I'm a complete novice when it comes to tomatoes, and am finding all the tips and advice a little intimidating. I had a thread about supporting tomatoes a couple of days back, and someone mentioned that if growing outdoors I should protect them from rain. Now I'm getting quite stressed about this as I don't know how to do this without going to great expense setting up a shelter or buying covers etc. I might just as well forget growing them and buy them! Is it really necessary to protect outdoors tomatoes from rain, and if so, does anyone have some imaginative ideas for a cheap home-made shelter?

[Knight of Albion]

Tomatoes, like any plant, are designed for the outdoors! So don't stress! Rain is a force of life.

As far as your tomatoes are concerned, using a cane as a support will protect the growing plant from getting bashed down by heavy rain or buffeted by strong wind.
A strong cane is essential once the fruits start to form as there will be quite a bit of weight there.

[kathycam]

Did they mean about the rain splashing blight onto them? Is blight a problem in your area, if not I wouldn't worry!

[roitelet]

Have a look at the thread 'Tomato Frame success'. Wet leaves on tomatoes encourages the blight spores to grow.

[taff]

The only reason to cover them is to try and avoid blight. I think you still get it in your area because it's not hot and dry enough there.

It comes when the humidity is high and the weather ia above a certain temp - look for the blightwatch website, there may be one for brittany, not sure.


DOn't stress too much, bordeaux mixture is popular in France [ I think], an application of that will hopefully prevent it but it's no good if you want to be organic.

[Penellype]

My tomatoes are currently in plastic growhouses (to keep them warm rather than protect them from rain) but I am desperate to get them out in the open because the growhouses are warm and humid - perfect for blight. We had one day when the smith criteria were met here (yesterday) but the temperature dropped just enough to stop it becoming a full smith period today. Unfortunately some of the nights in the next few days may be quite cold if the skies clear, so the tomatoes will have to stay inside for a little longer.

[Veggielot]

I think the problem with wet leaves is more of a problem in a greenhouse. I wouldn't worry to much about rain but you won't get the humidity.

[kathyd]

Yasmin - you can buy wide polythene by the metre on a roll from Bricomarche or Point Vert or somewhere similar fairly cheaply - if you're worried about covering your tomatoes, maybe you could buy a length of that and use tall canes to make a frame to support it (modelled on a bean frame idea)? Stick bottles over the pointy bits to stop them puncturing the polythene, and you could leave the ends open to allow ventilation, and even lift it off on dry days if you want to? Weight it down with rocks along the edges. I normally grow mine under cover because of the blight, but even then they caught it in the polytunnel 2 years ago when it was really bad. Last year was fairly blight-free though, so even my few open air toms did quite well, but I suspect the blight'll be back again this year, so I'm growing most under cover again and just risking a few outside. On the plus side, the outdoor ones did have lots more flavour than the under cover ones .

[Dorothy rouse]

I'm growing toms, outside, 4 floors up on balcony, and they've been rained on since Monday, and now look so much better than they did, have grown about 6 inches, in. 3 days! They jst have little canes at the moment. So they won't be getting covers, if it rains they get wet, if the sun comes out, hopefully they'll like that also.

[Shadylane]

Blight isn't inevitable, but more likely if your toms are on an allotment. We never got it on our outdoor ones that were grown at home. If we get a summer like last year you probably won't have to worry.

[Yasminh14]

Thank you all very much for your advice and help. I think I am probably stressing too much, tomatoes are one of those plants which can seem far more complicated than they need to be for novices. I have now planted the Roma tomatoes outside and the cherries will follow today. I think I will just have to treat this year as an experiment and see how they go just growing in a warm sheltered spot without covers. I'm hoping for a nice hot summer like we had last year, we deserve it after the terrible winter!

Thanks Kathyd for your idea, I may try that if the weather doesn't hold up. I've seen that polythene in garden centres and we had considered making our own polytunnel, but didn't get around to it this year. But your idea is a quicker and easier short-term solution.

Thanks also for the reference to the tomato frame thread, that was also interesting and I've stored that away for the future. There was also an idea in that for growing vine tomatoes along the ground and just cloching them, which I may try for the cherries if space allows.