Friday, October 13, 2006

the end of tomato season

We have a frost warning in our area for tonight, so I harvested all of the tomatoes and pulled up the vines. I picked all of the tomatoes: green, pinkish and red. There were quite a lot of them hidden under the leaves out there. Its a chilly day here, in the 50s, with no breeze. The cold air that left the midwest under a lot of snow is moving our way. No snow for us, thank goodness! The Boston area may or may not frost tonight, but the tomatoes aren't growing any more anyway, so I'm taking them down today. I'll put the tomatoes in the basement to ripen. I'll put them in smaller containers, so they don't squish each other as they ripen. And I'll put a paper bag over them. Then I have to remember to check them regularly as I in past years I have forgotten them and ended up with a mess. I expect about half will eventually ripen - all of the ones with a tiny bit of pink showing. The rest I will probably compost.

Solanum lycopersicum

3 comments:

Carol Michel said...

That's quite a lot of tomatoes. I did the same a few days ago... under threat of frost, I called it quits and picked all I could. Your gardens are nice looking even at the end of the season.

Anonymous said...

What a healthy end-of-season harvest! It's always fun to tuck in for the winter. :) Perhaps you could enjoy some fried green tomatoes?

kathy said...

I did see a nice fried green tomato recipe on a gardening blog last week. I forget whose... They looked tasty. Slice, dredge in flour and fry oil. I've never tried these, but may get up my courage.