by Cherry Kelly

Created on: September 26, 2008

Fall Gardening: Late growing tomatoes

If the weatherman calls for a light frost, cover your tomato plants during the night and remove the cover during the day. The leaves might die off or turn brownish, but the tomatoes will continue to grow and ripen. If a killing frost is predicted then harvest your tomatoes.

Fall gardening will often leave you with both ripe and green tomatoes. Pick them all and divide into all green, partially ripened and almost ripe ones.

Green tomatoes should be picked and checked for soft spots or bug damages. The larger tomatoes can then be washed and dried. While they are drying, gather some small cardboard flats, newspaper and paper towels. You can cut cardboard boxes to create the flats.

When the tomatoes have dried, separate them into the same or nearly the same size, and then divide again by their green coloring. Cover the bottom of your cardboard flat with a single sheet of paper towels. Next start with one tomato, wrap a rolled newspaper around the sides, place your next tomato and wrap it with newspaper so the tomatoes do not physically touch each other. Take this flat and put it into a dark, cool basement. Cover the top with a single layer of newspaper. DO not stack any other flats on top of these. Do this with all your green undamaged larger size tomatoes. Keep the lighter green tomatoes together as they will ripen first.

Check your flats once a week by watching the color of the tomato turn from green to pink or yellow/pink and red. Remove the tomatoes from the flats when they start to turn pink and allow them to sit on a plate on your counter to finish ripening. Do not put them in the fridge.

You can freeze whole ripe tomatoes. Place them on a flat sheet and sharp freeze, and then put them into storage Baggies in your freezer. Be sure to put a date on the Baggie. When thawing, drop the frozen tomato into hot tap water. The skin will peel off easily. Then set the tomato into a bowl to finish thawing. These can be cooked and used in several food dishes that call for tomatoes.

Partially ripe tomatoes should be allowed to ripen by setting them on a paper towel surface. Do not put them in direct sunlight.

The ripe tomatoes that have flaws (cracks, slight bug damage) can be cut, cooked, strained and turned into juice that can be frozen for use in winter soups and chili dishes.

Green tomatoes with slight damage can be cut and canned, fried or used for salsa mixes. You cannot store these unless you are cutting and freezing the undamaged part of the green tomato.

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