Little green wonders: Tomatoes

Yes, green.

I didn’t have much luck with my tomatoes this year.

First, since my greenhouse died, I had to plant them outside when it was really a bit too chilly. Since I knew the demolition team would ruin them in the window.

Then we had a heatwave and the plants sported more and more tomatoes but they just never went red. And in fact the big ones looked really weird… I remembered to water, so what was going on?

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First I tried to cut off many of the leaves which were really abundant and healthy – to make the plants focus on those fruits rather than boosting their foliage. A few, like 2 a week, of the little ones obligingly turned orange. I’m open to the suggestion that yes, there are also too many tomatoes for such a little plant…

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By the time I found out that the brown spots are a sign of calcium deficiency, the cold was returning. So most of my tomatoes are still green (and brown since it takes a while for the calcium to kick in). September Indian Summer? Don’t know if we’ll have one or whether it would help.

So I’ll soon have to decide what I want to do with a bunch of green tomatoes.

I came up with this contraption made from parts of the old greenhouse – yes, I saved all those poles. I figure next time I could also make a plastic cover I guess, but this happened at the same time as my heart “incidents”, so I only got as far as tieing them up.

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My insistent photography assistant for the day:

arthur9

The apple tree is carrying quite a big load too, but it’s far too big for me to trim and it seems to cope alright.

apples

It also reminded me to let the ponies out to graze only an hour too late. They do love their greens. (and apples)

grass

11 tanker om “Little green wonders: Tomatoes

  1. I pickle green tomatoes, it’s very quick and easy and they’re very popular among friends and family. You just boil them for a few minutes in a pickling liquid of your choice (mine consists of a mixture of white wine vinegar, water, and some salt, sugar and cinnamon or cloves) and then put them in sterilised jars. And my mother-in-law makes green tomato chutney, but unfortunately I don’t have a recipe for that. But if you pick green tomatoes and leave them on a tray inside the house, they do ripen eventually, this is what I always do with the last ones of the season.

  2. I just traveled quite a bit in the South where I saw ads for fried green tomatoes everwhere! As a side, an appetizer, a burger topping. I ate them when I was a kid but now don’t know if I could handle the grease… I like the idea of a chutney. Something that can be jarred up and stored. Green tomato jam or salsa? (We have peach salsa from the aforementioned South). Love the photos of your furred friends– our new apartment has 2 cats living downstairs that roam around. I already bought toys for them, whenever they want to visit us…

  3. We had the same problem, but during a recent heat wave they’ve all started to ripen. I love your photo assistant.

  4. Ewww Griffelråd er ondt! Mine revner bare. Grønne tomatpickles eller grøn tomatsalsa er da gode forslag. Håber dit hjerte volder dig færre kvaler efterhånden.

  5. I have an idea that might work for you for next year. Hanging baskets! http://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-plant-hanging-upsidedown-tomatoes – I have seen people successfully grow tomatoes in plants in them. This is just one link, I googled “tomato hanging basket upside down”. Then you can plant early without a greenhouse and when the plants are small and need to be sheltered, you could perhaps take them in at night – maybe in the barn? until it is warm enough for them to be out all the time. But I hope you get your indian summer and more red tomatoes!

  6. Love your photography assistant! He is brilliant. As for tomatoes – your plants seem to be really healthy and full of fruit. Mine on the other hand are really poorly… I don’t know what went wrong, but in one of the green houses they started rotting on the actual plant! Well, at least we have loads of apples this year, so many that I don’t know what to do with them… (I think even the neighbours are getting fed up with finding a bucket full of apples by their gate). K.

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