I have a nice sunroom and I'm thinking I'd like to try to grow a tomato plant inside this winter. Our winters are not too bad. I would use the sunroom for a month longer and then transfer the plant inside the house in a west window for about three months and then back in the sunroom after it starts warming up again.
I'm new at doing this. Any suggestions or ideas? If this is a bad idea, please let me know. I just know I hate to have to buy tomatoes from the store for winter/spring.
Have any of you done this?
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rainbowgardener
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- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
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I know, it just kills all of us to go back to eating store bought tomatoes! Ugh! 
HOWEVER, tomatoes are full sun plants. There is no way you are going to grow and ripen tomatoes with window light, sunroom or not. If you can add a bunch of artificial light in your sunroom and keep it warm enough, maybe.
HOWEVER, tomatoes are full sun plants. There is no way you are going to grow and ripen tomatoes with window light, sunroom or not. If you can add a bunch of artificial light in your sunroom and keep it warm enough, maybe.-
hendi_alex
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Tomatoes are quite the challenge to grow during the winter in a temperate area. They need both lots of warmth, over 80 degrees to thrive, and plenty of light, at least 14-16 hours per day. If you use supplemental light, I don't think that any of those seed starting/small plant setups would work. You would have to have some of the high powered lights like might be used to grow that unmentionable plant indoors. Those kinds of lights cost an awful lot to operate just to get a few tomatoes out of season.
I have grown tomatoes in my greenhouse, which stays warmer than you location would, and also gets more light. Even in that location the tomatoes were such a challenge that I eventual gave up on the effort.
Some tomatoes lend themselves to indoor winter container culture than others. Mostly they are the somewhat small vines patio typles. A larger slicing tomato plant is not likely to give very good results.
Finally, when grown indoors several pests can get entrenched, ones that usually cause no problem outside. Two that gave me particular trouble were white flies and sometimes spider mites. Spider mites are easier to keep under control, but white flies with their chemical resistance are almost impossible to control. I've never had a problem with white flies in the outside garden.
I would think that you would be better served to use your excellent indoor light situation to grow very early seedlings to get a jump on the next year's tomatos. With your setup you could start a few seedlings as early as December. As long as you can keep the plants in the sixty to seventy degree range, and give them some supplemental light for about 14 hours per day, they will be full sized, blooming, with small tomatoes by the time you plant them in the spring. Some kind of bottom heat like a heating mat or even one of those waterproof heated dog mats will do wonders to aide in your effort. With earliest start tomatoes I move from a goup pot of four or five plants to individual four inch pots, to 1 gallong nursery pots, and eventually three to five gallon nursery pots before planting time. Each time the plants get moved up to a larger pot, you can literally see the plants jump in growth. Also anythime the weather is sunny and over sixty, the plants go outside in the coldframe or on the sunny porch. This kind of approach can give you home grown tomatoes at least 8-10 weeks earlier than as compared to buying six packs in the spring and planting them.
I have grown tomatoes in my greenhouse, which stays warmer than you location would, and also gets more light. Even in that location the tomatoes were such a challenge that I eventual gave up on the effort.
Some tomatoes lend themselves to indoor winter container culture than others. Mostly they are the somewhat small vines patio typles. A larger slicing tomato plant is not likely to give very good results.
Finally, when grown indoors several pests can get entrenched, ones that usually cause no problem outside. Two that gave me particular trouble were white flies and sometimes spider mites. Spider mites are easier to keep under control, but white flies with their chemical resistance are almost impossible to control. I've never had a problem with white flies in the outside garden.
I would think that you would be better served to use your excellent indoor light situation to grow very early seedlings to get a jump on the next year's tomatos. With your setup you could start a few seedlings as early as December. As long as you can keep the plants in the sixty to seventy degree range, and give them some supplemental light for about 14 hours per day, they will be full sized, blooming, with small tomatoes by the time you plant them in the spring. Some kind of bottom heat like a heating mat or even one of those waterproof heated dog mats will do wonders to aide in your effort. With earliest start tomatoes I move from a goup pot of four or five plants to individual four inch pots, to 1 gallong nursery pots, and eventually three to five gallon nursery pots before planting time. Each time the plants get moved up to a larger pot, you can literally see the plants jump in growth. Also anythime the weather is sunny and over sixty, the plants go outside in the coldframe or on the sunny porch. This kind of approach can give you home grown tomatoes at least 8-10 weeks earlier than as compared to buying six packs in the spring and planting them.
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plantkiller
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- Location: Brevard County, FL
I have 10 seedlings right now that I sprouted very late that I will be transplanting some into buckets and some into the ground. I plan on giving it my best to grow them through the winter. On cold nights I will bring the buckets inside and back out in the morning or as soon as possible. Going to string Christmas lights around the ground planted ones..turn on the lights and cover them when the temperature dictates. The cheaper the lights the better they are at giving off heat supposedly. I have a relative that gave me the christmas light idea and she is in my same relative area (central FL), said she has grown tomatoes with varying success but with due diligence she assures me it should work assuming we don't get a dreadfully cold winter.
I wasn't paying as close attention to the weather last year as it was before I had a garden but I don't think I had to even put on a jacket more than a 5 or 6 times. Hopefully I won't be spending too much time pampering them!
Not sure that it is worth all of the effort but I'm interested to see if it can be done.
I wasn't paying as close attention to the weather last year as it was before I had a garden but I don't think I had to even put on a jacket more than a 5 or 6 times. Hopefully I won't be spending too much time pampering them!
Not sure that it is worth all of the effort but I'm interested to see if it can be done.
Wow--thanks hendi and rainbow! I had no idea how hard it might be. Although we are a warmer area in the north, nevertheless, we don't have that much light in a day. And we can get down to zero outside easily. And we certainly don't keep our inside temps at 80! 
I think on the shortest days we have about 9 hours of daylight but that doesn't mean sunlight necessarily.
But you're right. We've been so spoiled with such delicious tomatoes from our garden and hated to have to buy them in the store. Soon we will pick all our green tomatoes and as they ripen we will use them. We might have tomatoes until the middle of December.
Then *sigh* we will have to buy them again!!
I think on the shortest days we have about 9 hours of daylight but that doesn't mean sunlight necessarily.
But you're right. We've been so spoiled with such delicious tomatoes from our garden and hated to have to buy them in the store. Soon we will pick all our green tomatoes and as they ripen we will use them. We might have tomatoes until the middle of December.
Then *sigh* we will have to buy them again!!