Can you keep tomato plants right through the winter?

if so whats the best way to do it?

Can you keep tomato plants right through the winter?
Depends on light and temperature. If the frost gets them that'll be the end of it, but without enough daylight they won't ripen anyway. If you can bring them indoors (or have a heated green house) you might stretch the season, in Spain they're grown commercially in polytunnels most, if not, all year.


Mine (outdoors in London) are over ten feet tall now and still flowering but I doubt they'll last much longer.
Reply:My plants are in the greenhouse and are still producing fruit!!


Its the first year we have had a greenhouse so I dont know how much longer they will last
Reply:no you cannot keep tomato plants blooming all year long. They are annuals not perennials. They need lots of sun, before the harvest in fall.
Reply:You might be able to buy some tomato plants that grow in winter. Usually no. You could try and keep them in a warm greenhouse but you have to remember they need lots of sunshine too and we aint gonna get much of that now till March LOL.
Reply:Sure, if you have them in a greenhouse. Mine are outside. They've been there since June, but they're dead now. I wish I had a greenhouse. They gave me some nice tomatoes.
Reply:No you can not
Reply:it depends where you live, if the winter climate is not too harsh then maybe. It also depends on the type of tomato plant you buy, some are more hardy than others.


You could install a better heating system in your greenhouse if the tomatoes have died before. Maybe keep them in a conservatory with proper heating?
Reply:It would depend on the climate you were in. In So. California, I have kept the plants alive through the winter months. We don't have a frost. But they become gangly and don't seem to produce the next season.


I start from scratch the next spring. That also lets me prepare the soil.
Reply:In the UK, the only way is under glass and with supplemented lighting (daylight spectrum bulbs, High pressure sodium and/or fluorescents).Toms require a high ammount of light to survive winter growing, typically a 16 hour day cycle (the high pressure sodium wavelength light required to encourage flowering).