Fresh Garden Tomatoes in Early Winter

I’ve written several blog posts about positive outcomes from our lazy gardening methods. I’ve make a list.

• 1. Plants can be found at rock-bottom prices when you’re the last to plant your garden.
• 2. The farm crop is in, so all attention is paid to planting the garden.

And now here’s another positive outcome to planting 1-2 months later than your peers.

• 3. You can enjoy produce well into December.

I hope you aren’t giving my photo of my tomatoes the side-eye. I love my tomatoes like a mother loves her own children. They might not be the most beautiful specimens, but they are mine! They may have spots and bumps, with not-perfect attributes, but I raised and tended them with love and am so proud of how they turned out! (I’m talking about my tomatoes here.)

Sitting in my kitchen windows are every tomato left on the vines right before the hardest frost of the fall. It’s one of those really hard frosts that covering a plant with multiple coverings would not protect the plant from the tomato and vine-killing cold. I gather around 5 dozen tomatoes of varying colors of red and green.

Late Gardens Produce a Harvest Well Into the Fall

The most-red tomatoes go to the newspaper-covered windowsills right away. The Granny Smith green tomatoes go into a basket in the basement. We have sliced tomatoes with breakfast, lunch and dinner. We savor the last tastes of summer at every turn of the day.

I must inspect every tomato every day. Any signs of possible mush is immediately addressed.  Have you ever smelled a rotten tomato? That’s a bad smell! A few tomatoes get tossed. Most are eaten and will be enjoyed well until the middle of December!

What was on my windowsill above my sink before the tomatoes spent time soaking up some sun? A small oil can I found in an old barn that was demolished, a South American bird whistle when you fill with water and blow, it sounds like a tweeting bird, and arrowheads and small smooth rocks I found while picking up rocks in the field.

We enjoy those last tastes of tomatoes and ponder what we will plant next June. It’s not that far away!

Be Blessed!