Picking Tomatoes

You are you closely watching to see if they are the ruby red ripe color you are waiting for.  What isn’t better than vine ripened tomatoes? is wh  So you wait, and wait, and wait and they just don’t seem to be turning fast enough.

            What I do…….  I love red tomatoes to eat them all the summer - and I like LOTS of them.  My growing season is short as I am in the mountains and who know when they may freeze.  I had a freeze on July 4^th; it was terrible I wasn’t expecting that cold of weather that late in the season and wiped out my tomatoes.

So when I see a tomato start to turn pink I watch it closely and as soon as I see that pink coming through I pick it.  I bring it inside and put it in the window or a basket until it gets red or whatever color it wants to be fairly quickly.  Then I make myself a tomato sandwich on my homemade bread.  (The recipe will come at a later time.)

If you look at the above picture you will see my tomatoes in different stages of turning ripe.  In the fall I even pick them green, they will store for quite a while and turn ripe unless they are real small and haven’t developed enough.

If you pick your tomatoes as they start to ripen rather than fully ripe you will get a larger harvest and a quicker harvest.  You will also lose less to animals and birds if that is one of the problems you have.  I have deer, rabbits and who knows who else eat my grape vines other vegetables.  I don’t mind sharing some but they eat enough of my alfalfa so I do have my limit of sharing.

Enjoy your tomatoes this year, just don’t think they don’t taste any better ripened in the house than vine ripened.  I can’t tell any difference other than I have a whole lot more.