Tomatoes in a hoop house

Hi all. Thrilled to find this forum! This is my first year doing sfg and am loving it. I have my tomatoes (who are growing like they are on steroids) in a hoop house. I have Juliette's and Early Girls. Do I need to be concerned about pollination since they are covered all the time? Also they've all hit the roof of the hoop house, do I need to open it up or will they stop growing up? I've got cucumbers, watermelon, pumpkin, and acorn squash in there too and think they would HATE the cold weather we've been having if they were exposed.

Thanks for your help!
Corinna

Welcome to the forum. I'm in the same climate, and am a real big fan of SFG hoop houses. The one major disadvantage to them is that my warm season plants run out of growing room. They will continue to grow where ever they can find space, sideways or down, and you will soon end up with a jungle. July is almost here so I would consider opening it up soon.

You can manually pollinate your tomatoes by simply shaking the plant. You can manually pollinate your squashes,etc by plucking a male flower and dusting it over the female flowers.

Here are a few of my tomatoes in April


Then in May soon after I uncovered them


And they haven't grown very much since It's been another cool spring, but not as bad as the last two years.

Hi Corrinaq and welcome to the forum! So glad to hear you are loving your new SFG and your plants are growing so well in your hoop house. I hope you'll be able to post pictures for us soon.

Yep, be sure to pollinate your plants in there if you aren't going to open them up. Do you open them during the day sometimes? And if so, do you have flowers around it to encourage pollinators to come visit?

If things are getting too crowded and you don't want to open your hoop houses, you can always prune. Yes, that would mean giving up fruits if you end up heading off plants. It's up to you. Good luck!

we have a little green house going this year too....our first year to try and grow in a green house....so far the pepper plants are doing great!!.....they have ton's of flowers and green peppers on them.....im wondering if we are going to have to transplant them into bigger pots.....

we have one tomato plant growing in the green house....a brandywine....she is almost to the top of the green house.....we either will trim her....or if ...if...we get some hot weather soon we may have to move her out side.....she is loaded with flowers...no fruit yet....we open the door up during some of the warmer days we have had and we also wont zip up the door all the way....everyday we find beas and other bugs in there flying around....we also give her gentle shakes now and then......

we also are trying to grow cantaloupe for the first time.....keeping them in the green house in hopes having some heat will help them to grow.....we are going ...or i should say hubby is going to put up a trellis on each wall side for the cantaloupe to grow up on.....if they take off....then its going to get a bit crazy in there

hugs

rose.....who hubby is thinking about hoop housing our whole back garden area

Boffer how big is your tomato box's and how high are those hoops?

we are thinking about putting more hoops over our back garden area.....hubby wants to do one giant hoop house.....im thinking more of just hooping 2 more box's where our corn is growing they are each 6x8

after using hoops and a green house for the first time this year.....we are finding a big differnce in what we can grow....how much earlier we can start things....and then in hopes of a fall/over winter harvest as well.....

with how not so well our corn is doing .....next year we want to hoop them until it heats up......last year our corn did great....but we started them in doors a lot sooner then we did this year......cause this year....we are trying to grow 96 corns

hugs

rose.....with a hubby that wants to hoop the corn now.......do you think it will help with this years corn??

FamilyGardening wrote:rose.....who hubby is thinking about hoop housing our whole back garden area

I'm seeing more and more make shift hoop houses/greenhouses down my way. Even the row gardeners are putting up hoop tunnels. Every year I add a few more. Next year I'm planning on enclosing my corn patch which is 8x25. I WANT CORN!!!


Oops, you posted ahead of me, so here's my response to your last post. The box is a 4x4; the hoops are the 10 foot length of the PVC, and the height in the middle is about 42 inches.

I think for tall stuff, you'd be well served by making hoops from either cattle panels or concrete reinforcing wire. They are a simple way to get some height.

LOL....Boffer..... i am not stocking you

yes...we want corn too!!

thanks for the info on the hoops......using cattle panel....hmmm.....something to think about....will see what hubby thinks

hugs

rose....off to find pic's of cattle panel hoop house's for hubby

FamilyGardening wrote:LOL....Boffer..... i am not stocking you

yes...we want corn too!!

thanks for the info on the hoops......using cattle panel....hmmm.....something to think about....will see what hubby thinks

hugs

rose

There are some attractive pictures on the forum of cattle panels; show him those!

It's almost time to start thinking about fall planting! Last year I planted near the end of July. This year I'm planning on starting in mid-July, direct seeding everything.