Garden update, the tomato edition

[mousme]

I have oodles of tomatoes. Oodles. Unfortunately, 90% of them are green and refusing to ripen. I don't know if I like green tomato chutney, so I'm reluctant to committing so many tomatoes to that endeavour just yet.

With prompting from toughlovemuse I have rimmed a bunch of the leaves off the plants, in the hopes that that will encourage the fruit to ripen. I've left the Brandywines entirely alone this year, but next year I have nefarious plans to encourage them to grow into riotous bloom.

I have baby tomatoes forever. It's wonderful. Every day I go out and pick one to two cupfuls of them, and have yet to run out. I ought to be golden for at least another week, maybe ten days. Good times.

The peppers have grown an extra three inches in height (w00t!) and are producing itty-bitty fruit, which I am awaiting anxiously. The red peppers are still tiny and green, and it's taking all my self-control not to poke at them constantly.

The rose bushes have flowered again. I thought they would only flower once this summer, but lo and behold there are four or five new blooms and at least two or three buds still in the making. I am absurdly pleased. The roses have grown like mad this year. The bush we cut almost down to the ground is now taller than my head.

Speaking of riotous growth, the basil is up to my waist again. The plants have become like small trees. It's a bit disconcerting.

Oh, and the weeds are flourishing. Naturally.

In other news, I don't feel like going back to work today. Not at all. Bleh.

Comments

[curtana.livejournal.com]

You can make salsa with green tomatoes, it's lovely :)

[joane.livejournal.com]

Ooh; green tomato salsa! I may well be in the same boat with the piles of green tomatoes this year, so I'm keeping an eye out for recipes.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

I used this recipe last year, it made two large tupperware containers' worth, and we just finished off the last one last month or so. It keeps very well in the fridge, no processing needed.

[joane.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you! I found a few online, but one that's been tried and pre-approved of by someone I know is even better. I'll probably can it, just because that whole process is new and shiny and exciting to me right now, but it's also very good to know that it'll keep regardless.

[curtana.livejournal.com]

Yer welcome :) I made it with a mix of jalapenos and green peppers, so that it would be Arthur-approved, and that turned out well.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Ooh, it sounds like you've had some success in gardening during The Summer That Wasn't (Year Two, Electric Boogaloo!)

Cats and I germinated and planted eleventy billion tomatoes this year, and the only ones that are ripening are the five bought plants :/ The others are very green, not fruiting, getting blight, or some combination of the above. (We're yanking all the sad ones this week)

It's not a low cal option (hee!) but I do recommend fried green tomatoes. Mmmm!

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

When I grew tomatoes, someone told me to take the leaves off the tomato plants to make them ripen and it really helped.

No need to panic, according the The Weather Network, there won't be any frosts for at least two weeks, so your tomatoes have time to ripen.

[owldaughter.livejournal.com]

We stripped about 75% of the leaves off our plants this year and voila, ripened tomatoes! The sun reaches them better, and the plant's energy doesn't go into growing sixty trillion leaves.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

Yup, yup, lots of gardening is logical that way.

[mellybean71.livejournal.com]

There's a lot you can do with green tomatoes. I've fallen in love with green tomato pie -- it's seriously amazing and you can freeze batches of the filling for another time.

Somewhere I have my church's recipe for curried green tomato soup which I also love.

At the very least you could fry some...

[vureoelt.livejournal.com]

Fried green tomatoes? ^_^