Weekly Gardening Thread
Flowering Fireworks - Aerial Display
Posted on 07/03/2009 4:00:47 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning to all of you gardeners. I hope every one of you have a safe and Happy 4th of July weekend! Since just about everyone grows tomatoes in their vegetable garden I thought I would share some information I stumbled across concerning when to pick your tomatoes.
Every tomato lover knows fresh, “vine-ripe” flavor is by far the best.
At the same time, many don’t know what “vine ripe” means. So, whether growing or buying tomatoes, they may be limiting their access to the top flavor of the season.
Tomatoes develop their optimum nutrition, color and flavor when they’re in the full red-ripe stage. But getting to that point doesn’t have to occur on the plant.
Tomatoes go through specific steps in developing “vine ripeness”:
* A gas called ethylene regulates the ripening process. Tomatoes start producing this gas internally when they reach full size and become pale green.
* When tomatoes turn about one-half green and one-half pink (called the breaker stage), a layer of cells forms across their stem, sealing them off from the main vine. At this stage, tomatoes can ripen on or off the vine with no loss of quality or flavor.
* Tomatoes don’t ripen at refrigerator temperatures. If harvested in the breaker stage, however, keeping them in a cool place (to a minimum 50 F) will slow down their ripening process. Keeping them warm (to a maximum 85 F) will rapidly bring full ripeness. And, once ripe, they can keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
This kind of control allows you to spread out the good eating over a longer period. A breaker-stage harvest also allows you to protect tomatoes from the heat extremes of summer. Tomatoes can’t form their red pigments when temperatures are above 95 degrees. They’ll still ripen, but they’ll end up a yellowish-orange.
Leaving tomatoes to ripen on the vine also increases the odds for cracking and other types of damage. Plus, it puts an increasing weight load on the viney plant.
Weekly Gardening Thread
Flowering Fireworks - Aerial Display
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Looking forward to all the gardening comments. Thanks for this thread. I enjoy it.
Oh! Good morning, too.
Happy 4th to you as well! The flowering fireworks graphic is lovely.
Very useful information about the tomatoes, and worth saving.
Around this old homestead, the chicks (five Barred Rocks and a Broad-Breasted turkey) have shown that the key to ridiculous growth rates is to become eating-and-pooping machines.
That can only mean one thing: this rookie poultry farmer is spending the holiday weekend building a chicken tractor (yay).
Today carries a chance of rain followed by five forecast days of sunny and dry (if cool) weather. I cannot believe I spent a week in May worrying about a dry spell.
I have been picking my tomatoes once they get a pinkish blush on them. In past years I just let them go as red as they could get on the vine - they are great bird attractors when red! I have not had bird problems this year.
I don’t have a lot of hope for tomatoes this year but the bell peppers are coming along fine in the cold weather.
We have 3 hens, 3 pullets, 3 five week old chicks and one rooster. We need to expand the coop. I’ve seen the “tractors”. Looks like a great idea.
I will have to try picking mine a tad underripe. All it takes is one heavy rain while they are turning, and we get huge cracks in them. :(
The tomatoes here are w-a-a-a-a-y behind. It will probably be another few weeks before we have fruit. Luckily the season here can extend into October if the weather is right. My record for harvesting a ripe tomato is November 5!!
hh
Thanks for the tomato info.
I am learning mucho the hard way as a new gardener.
There's nothin' in the world that I like better than
Bacon, lettuce and home grown tomatoes
Up in the morning and out in the garden
Lord get you a ripe one, don't get a hard 'un.
Plant 'em in the spring eat 'em in the summer,
All winter without 'em's a culinary bummer.
I forget all about the sweatin and the diggin
Every time I go out and pick me a big'un.
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown Tomatoes,
There's only two things that money can't buy:
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.
You can go out and eat'em that's for sure,
But there's nothin a home grown tomato won't cure
You can put em in a salad, put em in a stew
You can make your own, your very own tomato juice
You can eat em with eggs, you can eat em with gravy
You can eat em with beans, pinto or navy
Put em on the side, put em on the middle
Home grown tomatoes on a hot cake griddle
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown Tomatoes,
There's only two things that money can't buy:
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.
If I could change this life I lead,
I could be Johnny Tomato Seed
I know what this country needs,
It's home grown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don't bury me
In a box in a cemetery
Put me out in the garden would be much better
Hell I could be pushin up a home grown tomatoes.
Home grown tomatoes, home grown tomatoes,
What'd life be without home grown Tomatoes,
There's only two things that money can't buy:
That's true love and home grown tomatoes.
Homegrown Tomatoes, by The Blue Dogs
I’m putting up a new porch this summer. More of a sunroom/greenhouse with 4 pairs of sliding glass doors on the south side. Hopefully I’ll be able to get a very early start next spring.
My only quibble:
Never put tomatoes in the refrigerator!! It will affect the flavor negatively.
Pick when at the breaker stage and leave them in ventilated container (I keep the ones from the store) or on the counter until red-ripe. Then, store them in a Green Bag to delay further ripening and leave them in a relatively cool dark spot at room temperature. They will still last a week, or more.
I pick them at the stage where they appear orange-red on the plant, but are really only about half-ripe and then follow the instructions above. They also do not do anything at temperatures below 55-56, so if the nights are cool and the fruit is not fully ripe, I wait until the temperature warms up to pick them. There is then more sugar that has been transported into the fruit.
About two weeks before frost, tip all growing stems. You can cut off the growing tip or pinch out the growing tip. Pinching is better than cutting if the weather is cool/wet, to avoid mold infection in the cut. This tipping will drive sugar transport into the fruit and then, if you must harvest before frost, there is enough sugar in the fruit for it to ripen while wrapped (to concentrate the ethylene).
I place each green tomato (you can put several of them together if they are small; leave cherry tomatoes in a natural bunch on the vine) in a small, thin paper lunch bag and the bags go into an insulated cooler. Check the tomatoes daily or every other day. When they begin to turn red, take the bag out and place on the counter, so you can monitor ripeness. Without pinching, tomatoes may not ripen at all when stored and may rot, first.
I read about people picking green tomatoes early for fried green tomatoes. I prefer to let those ripen and use large light green/yellowish tomatoes picked at the end of the growing season for green tomato recipes. These have more sugar in them then early green tomatoes and are more digestible. Also, the early green tomatoes have the advantage of being able to turn into wonderful, ripe ones.
My gosh you get up early. And I thought I was an early riser!! Nice fireworks, BTW.
OMG, thank you for those lyrics. Years ago when I was in the process of a marriage ending I wound up stranded in Tennessee with 2 young boys. I worked picking tomatoes for a few months to get enough money to get home. I picked tomatoes from dawn till dusk with the 2 boys playing in the rows close by. I was sunburned, tired, emotionally drained and absolutely sick of tomatoes. I often slept with a portable radio on and one night I woke up hearing that song. I thought to myself, “my gosh, I’m even dreaming of tomatoes in my sleep.” I managed to save enough money by end of summer to get a bus up north to my home and get an apartment and found a job at a local university. I never heard that song again and figured I’d just dreamed it.
Thanks for that great info!
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