harvest

[cellio]

The temperature tonight is supposed to be below freezing, so today I did a final harvest. There are a few small green tomatoes that would need rather a while to grow and then ripen and I don't think I can keep the plant warm enough for long enough, so I picked everything that was larger even though it was still green, and I'll see if they ripen indoors. I've picked tomatoes before when they were orange but not fully red (to beat the critters to them), and I've had the occasional green one ripen on the windowsill. Today's are in a brown paper bag with a sacrificial apple. Even if I lose these last couple dozen, I had a pretty good bounty for the year, as best I can tell having never done this before.

The last of the rosemary and basil are currently drying. I had two different rosemary plants -- no idea what the difference was, but one is lighter than the other and they smell a little different. I decided to oven-dry one and hang-dry the other, to see how the methods compare. It's not true science because there's a second variable; I didn't split each variety into two groups. So I won't really know if any differences are due to the type or the method, but oh well. The main goal is to get dried herbs.

The lunchbox peppers were a disappointment. The peppers I got were nice, but I only got a total of 15 between the two plants. I will probably skip those next year and use the pots for something else.

I think next year I want to add some oregano.

Comments

[damont]

A dozen or so of the grape tomatoes were red or orange when I went out late Friday afternoon for the "gotta pick 'em all!" tomato harvest. The rest, including three half-sized round ones from the salad tomato plant and a bunch of Romas, were all green. We'll figure out what to do with those eventually.

Best of luck with the oregano next year!

[loosecanon]

There are some lovely recipes for green tomatos. They work much like tomatillos. I have never had them, but you may want to consider that as an angle.

[sine_nomine]

Green tomato pickles are a classic, fyi. :-)

[hudebnik]

We haven't had nighttime temps below freezing yet, but that should happen Any Day Now. I've sacrificed two of the outdoor Thai-basil plants; the third one is in a pot, and needs to be moved onto the enclosed porch, along with two potted Thai-chili plants; thanks for reminding me! In past years, potted chili plants on the porch have continued producing into December.

In our climate (NYC, same latitude as yours but presumably a bit more moderate due to the ocean heat-sink) rosemary usually survives the winter outdoors. We had four rosemary bushes that lasted for ten years or so before dying in a cold snap, and the current one has lasted several years so far.