Autumn green tomato roundup
Bringing in green tomatoes before the first frost is a must in my Zone 7 garden. The fruit may take quite a while to ripen and remain rather pale, but the the flavor will far outshine any store-bought tomato.
Tomato plants will freeze at 32-degrees F (or 0-degrees C), so beginning in October, I check the weather forecasts every day to stay ahead of Jack Frost. One year Jack beat me by one day and my harvest, sadly, rotted in the box caused by damage to the shoulders of each fruit.
This year I may have caught the green tomato harvest in time. Tonight the temperatures will drop to an estimated 36-degrees F, but I have lots of tomatoes to look forward to for weeks to come.
I am checking the box several times a day, removing any moldy fruit, and hoping for sparkling results in the flavor department as they ripen. Today, I spritzed the fruit with a bit of Chamomile tea which discourages mold. Nearby, I placed a small bowl of apple cider vinegar to draw away any late fruit flies. The tomatoes are sitting on, and usually covered by, sheets of brown paper from grocery bags. The box is a plastic storage box. I decided to cover the fruit with paper only instead of using the plastic lid. The idea of covering with paper is that gases emitted by the fruit will help speed ripening, so the cover will help contain the gas.
My harvest is beefsteaks, currents, plums, and cherry tomatoes in black, orange, green, yellow and red varieties. The black and green tomatoes were the most flavorful, leaving me with wonderful summer memories I hope I will be tasting again even in the chill of winter.
