Late Tomatoes!

The tomatoes I'd brought in on the vine (last post) have mostly pinked up. A few went over the edge and had to be discarded; perhaps more frequent monitoring would have prevented this loss. The yield was nearly a pound to cherry tomatoes!

Of the few I'd left on the vine as an experiment, two had gotten to harvestable state, and a third had already dropped, lying orangey in the dirt like the last leaf of fall (see photo)


I didn't touch the lettuce since it still seems to be coming along. There were tiny, gnat-like bugs swarming in the sun over the Tower tub, and noodling around the lettuce leaves at the Court was a black-and-white bee. It's nice to see some biological activity continuing, albeit at a slow space, even as things cool off.

Total harvest today: 15 ounces of tomatoes, mostly from the commingled items cut green for ripening on the stem

Bringing in Late Crops

Today's Yield

• 6 oz tomatoes, harvested green a while back and ripened in newspaper (see photo)
• 6 oz mixed greens, from  Tower Tub (described below)

It was cold last night; not freezing, but I'm concerned about losing the food value of what's left. This afternoon I brought in all the tomatos on stems, to rpen them indoors, except for a very few I left as experiments. I also brought in such greens as looked worth harvesting, leaving the very smallest on the off chance that we might get a warm week to make it worth harvesting.

On the plus side, the aphids seemed all gone. I'd never figured out how to get them off the greens, and I didn't want to give the food bank greens with bugs on them.

Tower
I got quite a few green tomatoes still on the stem, all cherry tomatoes except for one large tomato that had hidden out, green, in the foilage. These got wrapped very loosely in newspaper to control moisture, and set in plastic tubs in our apartment to ripen. Also, I got about 6 oz of greens which I'll drop off at the foodback tomorrow (Monday). I'll let the parsley go a little longer.

Court
The lettuce leaves are mostly browned (see photo). Perhaps I could salvage some leaves by chopping off the brown parts but they aren't acceptable for the food bank.
One exception: the red leaf lettuce. These are too small to harvest today but they don't seem bothered by the weather so I'll check them again later this week.

I got fewer green tomatoes than at the Court. They should ripen up nicely newspaper (see photo above).

In Both Locations
The chard is coming along slowly. Looper worms and aphids had hit them pretty hard but now that it's cold, they seem to be coming back.

Storm-Tossed Tomatoes

The winds blew strongly last night and much of today. When I checked the tubs, I found maybe a dozen tomatoes that seem to have been flung all untimely from their vine. Most were between the Court tub and wall, leading me to discover whether I could reach them. Many of the leaves are browning, but enough of the bush survives that some of the fruit are ripening, albeit very slowly and with much splitting.

From the Tower tub I took two large green tomatoes, still on the vine, to ripen within newspaper. They should be ready within a week for the food bank.