At last, the wadding has found a new home (cf. Waiting for a Freegler, which I posted last week), so that has been one achievement for the day. The other is actually more an achievement for the month.
Normally, whether the crop is small or large, it is usually green in September. It’s usually green in October as well.
On the plus side, that does mean I have tomatoes up until Christmas but, to be honest, they don’t taste that great by mid-winter. On the other hand, fresh out of the garden like the ones above, they are the reason we grow our own!
The plants have all but toppled to the ground. Because of wood in the hugel beds or just rock solid soil, it has been hard to push the stakes into the ground, so it may not be long before it is green tomatoes I am harvesting. Still, I have found that if the tomato is half-ripe, indoors it is fully ripe within a day. And it still tastes good at the moment.
Growing out of chaos 
I set the green tomatoes in bowl on the window sill too. They ripen. A friend told me to put them in a paper bag to make them turn green.
If the tomatoes do not taste as good later in the season they might need more fertilizer. Tomatoes are glutens when it comes to fertilizers and water.
Honey
Thanks for the tip about fertiliser. That might be a factor, although I did wonder if it was to do with tomatoes being left outside too long after temperatures dropped. Maybe that affects their internal structure (hence not ripening as well as those I’m picking at the moment)?
I can’t answer that because i am still learning the best way to grow tomatoes myself. We ar using the trial and error method.
Honey
Same here 😉
I like to leave them in the ground as long as possible but have been bringing in the half-ripe ones in the last few days and they do seem to ripen quite quickly. Will have to give in with the rest soon and get going on the green tomato recipes but I always live in hope of a last minute blast of sunshine to ripen them all.
Yes, let’s hope for a last blast of sunshine to get as many ripe tomatoes as possible!
Your harvest is amazing, Helen. Ours came very late this year, and as the evening temps drop, they’ll begin to slow production. There is nothing like a juicy, warm tomato from the garden. Enjoy!
Thank you, Alys! I hope you get plenty more tomatoes.
Thank you, Helen.
You can’t beat homegrown .. I’m have just sown some Cherokee toms today, I’m way late this year but the weather is lousy and I have decided to plant later 🙂
I hope you’re not going to have the strange growing season we’ve just had!
Hmm .. what’s the bet 🙂
😊