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Old July 10, 2017   #93
clkeiper
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: ohio
Posts: 4,350
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie View Post
The short answer to your question - about a month.

Long answer is that a lot depends on the weather. In recent years, the spring has gone from being very cold, low 20s F, to 80 degree summer-like days very quickly. Spring barely existed. I don't have my high tunnel set up with row covers or heat, and that would help a lot.

...........

I'm glad I built my high tunnel, but I'm not going to build any more like this. It's supposed to be the "correct" way to get early tomatoes, but I think I would do just as well with temporary low tunnels over early plants. It's also a lot cheaper. As soon as warm weather arrives, there is no need for the tunnel. It hurts more than it helps, by trapping heat and bugs. And that certainly is not going to be the case for everyone, it's just my experience and location.
I see a huge improvement in the quality of my plants inside vs outside plants. My high tunnel has absolutely beautiful plants with hardly any imperfections on the leaves due to disease pressure while the outside tomatoes look sorry this year. there are spots all over the foliage and stems. never seen anything like it. if I had to choose I would take the high tunnel growing anyday.
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Last edited by clkeiper; July 10, 2017 at 01:47 PM.
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