applestar wrote:
Tomatoes planted out with night time temp in the 40‘s will become stunted after 3-4 consecutive nights UNLESS followed each day by sunny upper 50’s to cloudy mid-60’s. Peppers can actually take the air temp as long as there’s no frost, but the ground temp needs to be higher than tomato’s and will get stunted due to roots getting too cold. Basil can’t take 40’s — needs 55 or higher.
BTW keeping at least one eggplant as an indicator with peppers works wonders — eggplants hold up their leaves when it’s too cold.
During the unstable highs and lows, the fierce wind will do in tender seedlings unless well hardened — I think the wind does more damage than the temperature. .
That's good to know, I had quite a few plants getting beat up but the daytime temps were higher. I really never gave the "Stunted" problem much thought, I figured if they survived they were fine and to be honest I have never noticed a difference in production from mothers day plantings to 40°F plantings.
Lost a few due to the combination of cold and wind though.