those green tomatoes WILL ripen inside! here's how
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Before I get into today's email, I want to share that Trees.com is having a Customer Appreciation Sale through 10/12. Check out their selection and get 20% off with code THANKS20 on every order. Around this time of year, you've probably got loads of green tomatoes on your plants, taking their sweet time turning red. And that would be fine if it weren't for the weather getting colder and colder (with perhaps the threat of a freeze looming). Contrary to popular belief, it's not the sun that helps ripen tomatoes—it's the heat. And with temperatures dropping, you could be waiting a looong time for the rest of your tomatoes to ripen on the vine. I usually recommend picking tomatoes before they're ripe anyway (to ensure pests and other things don't get to them first), so if the fruits are already fully developed (that is, grown to their final mature size), you can harvest them all now and ripen them pretty quickly indoors. Or, harvest now and stagger their ripening times so you can enjoy fresh tomatoes for a couple more months, all without the risk of losing them to frost.
(Plus the trick for controlling how fast—or slow—your tomatoes ripen so you don't end up with mushy fruits on the counter.) Seasonal tipsP.S. Still got green tomatoes on your plants? Here are 3 easy ways to ripen them indoors so you can keep enjoying fresh homegrown tomatoes through fall. P.P.S. What do you do with your tomato plants at the end of the season? Did you know you can leave them where they are so they can help rebuild your soil over winter? Fall 🍂 is actually the best time to work on your soil, since it gives you several months to let things decompose in place and stimulate all the good microbes by the time you're ready to plant again.​ Get a jump start on proper soil-building this fall and learn my "lazy techniques" to create healthy, active, nutrient-rich soil by spring—with much less work than doing it all in spring! Join Lazy Gardening Academy.​ |
Garden Betty
For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."