During the last week it has been horrible weather in finland.
I live in the south in Helsinki, but the night temperatures have been just torture for your average tomato hobbyist.
My thermometer in the greenhouse has shown the following night temperatures so far in the last 3 nights:
4 - 3.9 - 6 degrees centrigrade. Day temperature did not rise much above 10C.
Tonight the forecast shows 8 degrees centrigrade for the night. Day temperatures are now closer to 15C.
I have moved everything in pots inside: 62 big plants (also includes chillies, peppers and aubergines). Some already close to 1.5m tall. (i can't do anyting any more in my living room: no room left).
I built a fleece protection around my tomatoes outside on my allotment. I have 25 plants there. They range in size from 30 cm to well over a meter in height. Most are already flowering and a quarter of them have tomatoes growing.
My questions (finally).
Does anyone have any experience with this kind of weather and tomatoes? Can they recover from this kind of weather? I always assumed that they need at least 10 degrees centrigrade as minimum temperature.
Or can I basically give up on them and transport some of my plants at home to my allotment once the weather picks up? Or in other words, how quickly can you notice whether tomato plants have suffered irreversible damage from cold weather? We are not talking seedlings here. Most of the plants are pretty developed already.
The cold weather came a bit unexpected. Previously it has been 20-25 degrees centrigrade during the day. I guess it shows you just can't trust the weather.
But I could be worse. A bit further north it snowed.