Mission Impossible: 40 roma and San marzano tomatoes over winter

I grew giant tomatoes this year, septoria ravaged them buy still got a crop, mortgage lifters and pink fangs, they grew taller than my roof, fell over in bad winds a few times... now they are about done. 12 plants, really only made about 6 jars of tomatoe sauce, but dam it is good.

So now it's August... I dont wanna stop... I wanna to more!

I start 40 San marzano and romas in my kicked from seed Monday. I know winter is approaching but what are my options?

I'm in cumming Georgia and it's been a hot year, maybe it won't freeze till January. Maybe I can grow outdoors.

I was also considering my garage. Do I buy a tent system? How big? Maybe there is some kinda giant cart that holds 20 plants, that I can roll into the garage at night when it gets cold. Should I use 5 or 10 gallon growbags? How can I do better on tomatoe cages, maybe less of an issue in the garage? How do I avoid septoria, one plant I bought spread it to everything.

These are my thoughts, any help or guidance,  even "your nuts" will help, lol. Figure I have 2 to 4 weeks need to get the seedlings in the pots. Still learning, never grew indoors.

I brought in two pepper plants last year, but the trick is to prune them back to a few inches tall with just first or second set of leaves only.  Put in large pots, add whatever minerals  you use, a little compost and water it in.  They will definitely need a grow light and make sure your garage doesn’t freeze.   That many is going to be a lot of work so you must weigh the effort with what you get out of it.  I think tomatoes need more light than peppers.  You can rig up a trellis or something up high with strings leading down to the plants, for them to run on.  

Thanks. Question, when you over winter the peppers, did they do better the second year than the first, or had you wished you started with seedlings again? I have about 25 pepper plants of various types, debating whether or not to save all or some for next year.

I'm not really trying to make the tomatoes survive winter, trying to make them thrive winter. Or maybe just take my chances outside over the next 3 or 4 months... less work and money out there... maybe I can use hydro fox farm fertilizers (that seem overly branded) to speed them along. If I do that, think I would use 5 gallon growbags and cut holes in the bottom for the extra root room.

Maybe it's futile... maybe I should just go buy some romas from kroger and wait till next year, I could see this going south with a kitchen full of 40 tomatoe plants, lol.

Great Project!

How will you handle pollination?

Probably just shake em every other day.

I am wondering if you can take some healthy cuttings of your giant tomatoes and root them to get a second batch of plants fast. By the time the new plants are ready to be planted in ground, they will avoid the scorching summer heat that can cause lower yield.

Hmmm... thats actually a really good idea. Two problems... my current plants are infected with sepotoria from a bad plant from a bad man, trying to sanitize. Also, they are pink fang and mortgage lifters, I need romas this time, lol. Maybe a garage tent.