I would say that you should bring in your tomatoes day or night if temps are less than 50 degrees. One year I brought in tomatoes that had flowers as well as fruit. I flipped the flowers with my finger several times a day, and some of the flowers set fruit.
I put them in front of a south west patio door, which warmed up quite a lot on sunny days, and was probably around 70-75 degrees at night. As soon as a tomato had a little blush, I would pick it, wash it with warm water, let it dry, and wrap in newspaper or a paper towel to let it ripen on a kitchen shelf.
I also used a high intensity grow light to extend the daylight from dusk to around 8pm to simulate the length of summer days.
Good luck with your experiment. Hope it pays off - growth will be slower than outdoors.
Thanks for your advice. We don’t get a lot of sun in the house, but maybe I could look into getting some grow lights. The tomato plants look so beautiful now! I hope I can keep them alive. My boys were really excited about the planting we did in the spring, but we didn’t get a big harvest on anything—just a few cucumbers here and there, a bunch of tomatoes, some peppers, a few other things. I haven’t checked the sweet potatoes yet, although they spread out a lot above ground.
It was a good start, as I have been discouraged in the past to try vegetables at all on this shady property. I gathered some good information about what will grow where, so next year I know things will go better.
Just had to give you an update! I was thrilled to see that the tomatoes lasted all winter in pots in our basement with not a whole lot of light. I had to bring them down there after my toddler started messing with the leaves and dirt upstairs. Anyway, they flowered and started growing cherry tomatoes almost immediately. We have already harvested a bunch of tomatoes, very early for Michigan. Will definitely try this again this year!