I pulled up one of my tomato plants last October and hung it upside down in the barn. The idea was to get them before the first frost and hopefully have red tomatoes for an extra month or two. Well this photo is of the last two tomatoes picked and eaten after the new year. I would call this method of extending the tomato season a good one! One thing though, is that as the time goes by the tomatoes get less tasty. The first 20 or 30 I pulled off the hanging plant back in October and November were just as good as the ones picked this summer. By December, though, their taste of the ones I picked off was starting to be more and more grocery store like. These last two look nice, but they really were not all that good. Oh well, I got a bunch of good ones for a couple of months and extended the season for sure!
This month I start the early varieties in the greenhouse. I will set them out in April inside walls of water and hope to get the first red tomatoes by the end of June. These next 5 months until that happens will be long ones. I just can not find tomatoes in the store that are edible. Fortunately I still have many jars of dried tomatoes and tomato sauce in the freezer to eat until next summer.
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Ya we must have both been thinking about it since we’re enjoying some yard-fresh red tomatoes in the middle of miserably cold weather! We were so slow last year we didn’t actually get them into the ground until like… September. I’m kind of glad we got anything from those plants at all, but they really did grow quick once they got full sun and as much dirt as they could branch out for.
I’m looking forward to this season, and I’m hoping we can start planting some of these little indoor sprouts by early March. Then again, this winter has been so harsh that we almost had another freeze last night before some gulf rain came up.
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You can wrap picked, green tomatoes in newspaper and store them somewhere cool for several weeks and then have yummy juicy red ones.
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Hey Will,
Sweet tomatoes! I feel some tomato envy coming on.
Clever idea leaving the green tomatoes on the plant and then hanging it in the barn. It’s also interesting that although they all eventually ripened, the later ones didn’t have great taste. That’s what I would expect (but they do look pretty!).
We have a “winter volunteer” cherry tomato that sprouted in the fall and is providing a few tomatoes now, but the flavor is lacking. I think one needs sun and warm weather for good flavor.
Steve
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I have tried the newspaper route and it works OK. I have found that not wrapping them I get about the same results and I can see which ones are ripening… and which ones are rotting!
Hi Steve – Glad to see you here. I had been checking your site and was starting to get concerned that Santa Barbara had slid into the ocean with all the recent rains. I think you are correct about the sun. If the tomatoes you bring inside, either to hang, or just store, are partially ripe, then they taste OK. The ones that are still green, even if they do eventually turn red, taste pretty awful.
Yes John it is that time of year. I am cleaning out the greenhouse today and sterilizing the pots, getting ready to start lettuce.