Green Tomatoes

We had some pretty devastating frosts a couple weeks ago. All of our tomato plants are now dead. Before the frost I collected hundreds and hundreds of green tomatoes. I have no plans to ripen them. I just want to let them ripen on their own and use them accordingly. 

I forgot to check on them for a week and some rotted in one of the bags I had them stored in. The next time I do this I plan on building a screen rack system to hold them in one layer. This screen rack system will double as a drying rack for herbs and other garden produce.

The tomatoes are now in various stages of ripening. Our plan is to have garden tomatoes in November. I believe this goal will be achieved this year. Next year we plan on making it into December! One thing I learned is if there is even a tiny bit of frost damage, just compost it. I have noticed the green tomatoes that are rotting are the ones I collected with just a tiny bit of frost damage. Next year I will watch the weather closely and pick the night before the first frost, not the next day. 

We are still getting peppers! This is due to the fact that I went out every night that had a frost warning and covered the pepper plants with sheets. If I had more sheets I could have saved some tomato plants since the frosts only lasted a few days. It is 80 degrees today, October 25th. We will get better at this as we get more experience. 

Harvest 10/06/12

Here is a great harvest I picked this past Saturday. We have beets, chard, pumpkins, watermelon, bell peppers, tomatoes, jalapenos, spaghetti squash and butternut squash. The small red tomatoes are a variety bred to make sun dried tomatoes out of. A post of that process will be coming soon. We got some light frost last night, hopefully everything made it. I put some cardboard over a raised bed of lettuce to protect it. I realized I do not have any plastic for the rest of the garden. I will have to stop at the hardware store on the way home.

Harvest 09/18/12

Here is what I picked in the garden after work.

The Amish paste tomatoes are still producing heavily. Our bell pepper plants are full of peppers. I only picked a few because I want to give the rest a chance to change color. I know we have some red, yellow and orange bell peppers I just don't know which plant is which. =) The jalapeno peppers are going nuts. I picked a few and will get the rest in a week or so when they are big enough. We are still getting broccoli heads. I plan on making some salsa with the big tomatoes on the left, the black (red) hungarian peppers and some ground cherries when they come in.