RIP Tomatoes

On Monday 2nd April I was having a good day. I'd done lots of planting:

• Spring onions in planter
• Calabrese broccoli
• Romanesco broccoli
• Purple sprouting broccoli
• Courgettes
• Sweetcorn

I also started off our first batch of salads:

• Lollo Rosso
• Rocket
• Lamb's lettuce
• Little Gem
• Mixed red and green lettuces

I then thinned out my tomato seedlings - they were doing very nicely and needed their own space.

Then disaster.

A few nights later there was a really bad frost. This was the end of the road for almost all my tomatoes.

Tomatoes with frostbite

Even more annoying was the fact that I had an electric greenhouse heater that was left from the previous owners of our house. I'd not given it much thought and just shoved it in the garage.

No more frost here - hopefully

Anyway, after that frost I dug it out and tried finding some instructions for it on the internet. Whist I could not find any actual instructions, I found out that it has a Frost-Guard setting to make it switch on if the temperature drops below 5°C.

So now, this heater is plugged in and on the frost guard setting. I've checked on my electricity monitor and it looks like it kicks in during the night.

I know it's a bit like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but it's another lesson learned the hard way.