Tag Archives: tomatoes

Tomatoes Wintered Over

I pulled all my green tomatoes in Mid October right before it frosted real hard. I put them in a box wrapped in newspaper and put them in the basement. I have done this for several years now and this method works pretty good for preserving and saving the green tomatoes for use later.

This photo is of a few of my tomatoes that I am still pulling out of the box this week for use. Some are a bit wrinkled but they sure taste much better than those store-bought plastic tasting tomatoes that you get at the store this time of year.

A few tips if you try this wintering over idea. Check the tomatoes frequently to remove any overripe or spoiling tomatoes from your storage box or bag. I normally just cut off the bad part if any and use the remaining tomato in making sauces or condiments. Also make sure you keep the box or bag in a cool, dry and dark basement or area for storage. I found this works best. This year I used long, low boxes which I found worked out very well for the tomatoes to be stored. If you stack tomatoes on top of each other they tend to spoil faster in my opinion. Use newspaper to wrap them separately as this helps extend the wintering over process.

It truly is enjoyable to eat my own fresh tomatoes in January from last year’s garden. I plan to expand on this wintered over tomato idea again this year.

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Roasted Tomatoes

I had many green tomatoes still when it was time to pull up the tomatoes plants for the season. Just like last year, I saved all the green tomatoes and wrapped them in newspaper for ripening. You can read about those tips here. This idea works well and given a little time, the green tomatoes turn red while stored in a bag.

But on with this post and how I roasted some tomatoes that were ripe and needing processed. I have frozen tomatoes, made salsa and tomato sauce and used many of my tomatoes already this year. But I hadn’t tried roasting in the oven yet.

First I washed and cut up the tomatoes in about quarters. I placed them on a baking sheet that had just a bit of olive oil spread over it. I sprinkled the tomatoes with a dash of garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano. You can use any spices that you like to season your roasted tomatoes. I dribble a little more olive oil over the tomatoes and tossed them a bit to cover them with all the seasoning and oil.

Here is my pan ready for the oven.
Roasted Tomatoes Ready for the Oven

Bake at 400 F degrees for about 30-40 minutes. Just check them at 30 to make sure them aren’t burning or overdone. I think mine took Continue Reading →

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Garden Update

I haven’t posted in awhile and thought I’d share a garden update. It has been a challenging year with many of my seeds not wanting to grow very well. I had trouble with green onion seeds from two different companies that did not sprout. Then my tomato seedlings did not want to grow much after about an inch or two of development.
Zucchini 2021

But I am having success with my zucchini plants. See photo above of the big one which I have already harvested several zucchinis from already. There is another little one on the upper right which is hidden somewhat. I planted this one later so to stagger my crop. I love zucchini and what to be able to have an on-going crop so I planted one early and another seed was started recently.

Next I want to share an interesting development that happened in a old wheelbarrow that I keep for composting in the garden. I just throw all sorts of composting material like coffee grounds, egg shells, veggie trimmings, and whatever else I might have to toss. Well about a month ago I threw in some cantaloupe rinds and seed pulp into this wheelbarrow. Guess what, I have several wild cantaloupes growing now. I cleaned up the area around the plants and have been watering them faithfully. Check out the photo below.

Cantaloupe growing from seed pulp

I have never grown cantaloupe and not sure if it’s very conducive to growing in our climate but I’m giving it a go. I can’t wait to see how this experiment turns out.

Here are a few more photos of my tomato plants. The one tomato plant in the distance was started from some later seeds so it is smaller. I hope it will have enough time to development. But the big one closest to the camera already has many green tomatoes on it. Continue Reading →

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Stages of Ripening Tomatoes

As I wrote in my last post, I have lots of tomatoes ripening in various stages. I thought it might be fun to post a photo of the different stages of my ripening tomatoes. As you can see, I have very green tomatoes, to yellow, to orange, and finally to red.
Stages of Ripening Tomatoes

Here is my ripening green tomatoes post with some helpful tips on ripening any leftover tomatoes you may have from this year’s garden. Many of my stored green tomatoes have ripened. We will be enjoying homegrown tomatoes well into November from my stockpile of green stored tomatoes.

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Ripening Green Tomatoes

As my gardening season comes to an end, I still have many green tomatoes on my plants. Here is just a small bag of green tomatoes I harvested off of two plants. I needed to harvest the tomatoes on these plants as they were in frost danger. You can always cover your tomato plants at night to protect them from frost but the end of my warm season is here and it was time to just pick the green tomatoes.
Harvested Green Tomatoes

I wrote a post a few years ago with a great tip on ripening green tomatoes. You can read that post here. If you don’t have a ripe banana to place inside your brown paper bag, don’t worry. The green tomatoes will ripen over time inside a closed brown paper bag. You can also wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and then place them inside the paper bag. This is another good way to ripen green tomatoes and store them for future use. You can read more about storing green tomatoes here.

If nothing else, place the green tomatoes on a sunny, inside window ledge and they will also ripen over time. But if you have lots of green tomatoes, you might try my useful idea about storage of the tomatoes. It is very nice to have red home-grown tomatoes into November from the brown bag storage idea.

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Tomato Container Gardening

Here is a photo of some of my tomato container gardening this year. These plants have been growing in recycled plastic buckets for the last several months. I am just now able to start harvesting red tomatoes. As you can see I have a few more red tomatoes and many green ones still growing.

Tomato Container Gardening

I have reused these same buckets for many years now. I am able to buy them at my local grocery bakery for just a dollar. They are food-grade buckets that frostings, fruit-fillings and other bakery supplies are sold in. They make excellent containers for growing tomatoes and other items if you don’t have a lot of room to put in a traditional garden.

Most of these buckets just have holes drilled into the bottom for drainage. I also have a few self-watering buckets that I made using this self-watering tomato plant container tutorial. Here is one of my self-watering containers below.
Continue Reading →

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