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Cold Tolerant Tomatoes

April 28th, 2015

I’ve always grown a couple cold tolerant tomato plants for early fruit. They’re not nearly as good as a an heirloom on a hot summer day, but they’re better than grocery store tomatoes. This year I’m growing ‘Stupice’ and ‘Glacier’, both tolerant of temperatures down to about 40. I have read that some cold tolerant varieties will even set fruit when it’s this cold. Today I plan on moving a few to these lovely out into the low tunnel in the back garden, a few will be planted in pots to be put in a sheltered location by a rock wall. I’ll give a few away to local friends to try as well. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, my mom has always been trying to get an early tomato, one year she had one for the Fourth of July. We’ll see how early I can be enjoying a freshly harvested tomato on my BLT.
cold tolerant tomatoes 2
Another reason I love growing these varieties is to help maintain them. Years ago cold tolerant vegetables were selected and passed along to friends/neighbors in cold areas. We have lost some of that information and diversity. It’s wonderful that we live in a time when it’s easy to connect with so many people and these resilient varieties of fruits and vegetables are once again readily available to us.

Do you try to beat the season with cold tolerant varieties?

5 Comments to “Cold Tolerant Tomatoes”
  1. Chris on April 28, 2015 at 11:44 am

    Here in the NW our summer temps are just not warm enough for the larger tomatoe varieties, even those labled “cold tolerant”, unless you have a greenhouse. I call it the land of the green tomatoes! :) It is however perfect for growing the cherry or grape varieties, which I think are much sweeter. Our favorite is SunGold!

    Reply to Chris's comment

    • Joy Giles on April 28, 2015 at 7:51 pm

      Sun Gold are a favorite of mine. I’ve grown Juliet tomatoes and they do well in Texas, even through the hot summer when hardly any tomato will set. They are a small oblong tomato.

      Reply to Joy Giles's comment

  2. Joy Giles on April 28, 2015 at 7:49 pm

    I grew Stupice last year here in Austin, Texas. They did well and were quite tasty.

    Reply to Joy Giles's comment

  3. Kristi on April 29, 2015 at 7:17 am

    I grew glacier last year. I was able to enjoy one of the last strawberries and the first ripe tomatoes on the same day.

    Reply to Kristi's comment

  4. Nebraska Dave on April 30, 2015 at 5:16 pm

    Susy, didn’t know there was such a thing as cold tolerant tomatoes. I’ll have to look into it. I have tomatoes in five gallon buckets that have gone out during the day and in during the night. The next few days will be 48 and above during the night so I’m leaving them out. It looks like rain for the next couple days but no high winds or hail so I’ll leave them out for that. I will be able to bring them inside if the weather starts to act up. I have four in the buckets for early tomatoes and 12 in the wing for tomatoes later. The 12 in the wing will get planted six at a time. Six will be in large plastic cups as a reserve just in case a big storm blows through like last year with 100+ winds, baseball hail, and seven inches of flash flood rain. That happened the last week of May and pretty much killed all the gardening for the year. It was a good lesson learned about always having a plan “B” or even “C”. So that’s my cold tolerant plan for this year.

    Have great tomato planting day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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