I’m not convinced that my tomatoes are going to ripen before we get the first frost. So on Sunday at the farmer’s market I checked in with one of my favorite farmers for his advice both on how to improve my chances and to hedge my bets.
His advice was to top all of my plants and prune back any tiny tomatoes or blooms. Then I’m supposed to create a poly tunnel for the plants to warm them up. The pruning I can handle, the plastic is another problem. I need a piece big enough to cover 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide and 35 feet long.
Mike stopped at Lowe’s tonight to see what they had and struck out. I previously checked at Sky Nursery and they only had short pieces. Lunchtime tomorrow I’m going to start calling around to the various nurseries and farm supply stores and see if anyone has some, or can get me some on special order. I need it anyway to create my mini hoop house for winter greens and radishes so it won’t go to waste, the issue now is just to find it.
But back to hedging my bets. As long as I was talking to Mr Tonnemaker (I should find out his first name sometime…) I asked him about seconds on his tomatoes. He came through for me with a mixed box of blemished tomatoes. He said it was 20 pounds, but I’m pretty sure that it was closer to 30, and he’d take $1 per pound. So for $20 I got to hedge my bets a bit.
Tonight I sliced up the tomatoes and stewed them down. I ended up leaving the skins on as they were pretty banged up and it was easier to just cut around the bad spots without peeling them. Before I make diced tomatoes and crushed tomatoes I like to make some quarts of plain chunked and stewed tomatoes. They’re great in lasagna and quick pasta sauces and so easy to make.
After cooking them down for a while I jarred 8 quarts and processed them for 45 minutes in a hot water bath canner. Only 7 got processed because that’s how many my canner holds. The eighth got jarred and now will get frozen and used first.
I was hoping to have 3 dozen quarts in the pantry for winter, but this is a start. Hopefully the tomatoes will come through for us in the next couple of weeks. If not, I’ll have to sweet talk Mr Tonnemaker into another couple boxes of seconds.
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You can pick them green and put them into a paper grocery bag to ripen. Put one or more pieces of ripe fruit into the bag and close the bag for a few days. They might still be quite green, but you can take them and set them on a sunny windowsill. It should get the ripening process to start. The best part is that they tend to ripen all about the same time. I never wait for them to ripen on the vine anymore.
You must have quite a farm!
I’ve started rounding up tomatoe sources because our tomatoes just didn’t do well this year. We use a lot of tomatoes.
Have you tried fried green tomatoes? Green tomatoes are easy to can and when fried after being dredged in cornmeal, they bring back a little bit of summer in the winter.
Laura, you read my mind! I picked a handful of tiny cherry tomatoes last night and looked with disdain at my lovely Roma plant, full of two-inch-long, totally green tomatoes. I also just picked the first two vine-ripened Early (not!) Girls. I have so little hope my tomatoes will ripen before frost, and was planning to do some research today to see if I could do anything to help them along.
So…you’re to make a hoop row cover, is that what I understand? I have tomatoes in three little raised beds, but I’m sure I could find a way to rig something up. Thanks for the great timing!
Ooohhh great ideas….both the hedging and the asking for tomato seconds(:
I have been worrying about the chances of our tomatoes coming through in the short summer we had too. Just this weekend we constructed a hoop house from pvc and bought a big roll of visqueen from Lowes. The 4mm roll we got is 12 x 100 feet. Depending on how you arrange it, I would think that it would work for your dimensions too. Did you check the building supplies section of Lowe’s? They should have it there.
For a permanent structure I am sure that greenhouse plastic is probably the best (albeit much more expensive). But knowing that this was purely to try and save the tomato harvest and would be exposed to some serious wind on our lot, I opted for the cheaper and larger roll so I would have leftovers for other rescue attempts.
Good luck!
I too have been checking my tomatoes daily, but I don’t know what I expect. I’ve had about three cherries and one sauce tomato ripen and that’s it. I will admit that I put them in very late this year.
Several internet as well as friend sources have suggested this method – wrap tomatoes individually in newspaper and put them in a cardboard box no more than two layers deep. Put them in a dark place and add an apple or banana to the box. The apple/banana give off ethylene gas which speeds the ripening process. Then check them every few days and remove the ripe ones.
I don’t have personal experience with this method, but it does come from more than one source. I’m desperate and am going to try it! I figure that tomatoes ripened this way are probably still going to taste better than store-bought.
I had the same topping/ pruning/ warming recommendation from a gardener, and as I have only a few plants, I can probably cover them with plastic I already have around. I’ve been buying tomatoes from Tonnemakers for a couple of years; they have some heirloom plums, striped yellow and red, that I love for making sauce.
I just pruned all my plants a couple of days ago hoping to expose the green tomatoes to more sunlight. I’m glad to see that someone in the know actually recommended pruning!
Monica – I’ve got a few in a paper bag on the counter now to see what happens. Thanks for the tip!
J – We’ve been eating them green the last couple of weeks. We’ve had them fried, in scrambled eggs, sauteed with leeks and added to savory egg custard and tonight sauteed with other veggies. I’ll likely can whatever’s left when we get to the first frost warning.
Amy – you’ve got it. I’m not going to try to make hoops as they’d have to be really tall to get over my amazon plants. But that would be the best way.
Michelle – you’re welcome.
Maya – that’s what we were trying to decide. In the end I found greenhouse plastic in 15.5′x25′ rolls at the local greenhouse supply store. I’m picking it up tomorrow night.
Megera – that is now my back-up plan! Let me know if it works!
Kimberly – good luck with your plants. We used the frozen jar (which cracked because I overfilled it…) for stew last night – gosh they were good!
Kathi D – good for you! I started pruning mine tonight but only got halfway done.