It killed me last week to have to go out to my garden and pick unripe tomatoes from perfectly good vines. I did it because of a frost warning that night, and the weatherman was right. It was a helluva frost. The next morning, my vines were toast, but boy I had a great crop of tomatoes this year.
To extend my fresh-eating of tomatoes, I put about 40 of the unripe tomatoes in a couple of brown grocery bags, folded the tops, and put them in the basement. In four days, a dozen had ripened perfectly, and I hope to continue to harvest from my brown bags for the next week or so.
Nancy’s above-ground garden began producing in May, so by the end of this season, we will have had the luxury of eating fresh tomatoes for 7 months in a row.
I don’t look forward to having to buy those “hot house†tomatoes – they taste nothing like fresh, home-grown tomatoes, but it is what it is.
I can’t wait until next spring when I can get some more vines back in the ground.