Agri Kultuur June/July 2013 | Page 28

You have planned carefully so that you will be

planting tomatoes after the last frost, but there's always the possibility of a rogue cold snap. Frost will kill tomatoes, so you will want to be prepared ahead of time in case you should need to act.

The simplest manner of frost protection for tomatoes

growing is a cold frame. At its most simple, it is just

some wooden stakes wrapped with a plastic sheet that covers the tomatoes growing in the garden, essentially a miniature greenhouse.

You can make a more elaborate cold

frame from old windows and hay bales or a wooden framework.

Commercially made cold frames are available at nursery supply shops.

Using a cold frame also means that you can strategically plant earlier, closer to the last frost date.

As you are thinking about when to grow tomato plants, and as you get more confident about how to grow tomato's, you may wish to start doing this in order to get earlier harvests.

Second to sunlight in terms of

importance to your success while

growing tomatoes is watering.

Roughly, tomato plants need about 5 cm of water per week. Water brings, among other things, essential calcium to the roots and a deficiency of that mineral can lead to blossom end rot.