Tomatoes, take two

Last year we were disappointed with our fall planting of tomatoes. Per Master Gardener handbook instructions, we put out transplants in late summer and babied them through the hot weather with shade and mulch. When the weather cooled off, they set fairly large quantities of fruit, but we were hit with an early freeze in December (usually we don't have a freeze until January or February, if at all). We had six plants, two of which I attempted to protect with frost cloth, two of which I uprooted and hung upside down in the garage, and two of which I picked the green tomatoes and left them to ripen on the kitchen counter. The frost cloth was ineffective in protecting the first two plants, but most of the others ripened eventually. The fruit was not as good as summer tomatoes ripened on the vine, but it made an adequate tomato soup,

This year we are trying two short-season heirloom tomato plants in large pots, Glacier and Taxi varieties. The idea is that if frost is predicted, we can wheel the pots into the garage as we do with our plumeria trees. It generally doesn't dip below freezing for more than a few nights in a row here, so being in the dark for a couple of days shouldn't be a problem. At least that's my hypothesis. We also have a couple of volunteers that came up in the garden...one appears to be a Sweet 100 cherry tomato, and I'm not sure what the other one is yet. We'll see what happens to them as well.