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."
get your tomatoes to ripen on the vine—faster
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Gardening in Central Oregon, I've become a bit of a weather nut. We have a weather station at home (an older version of this one) where we monitor daily temps (which can fluctuate by as much as 40 to 50 degrees from day to night—crazy right?), wind, rain, humidity, everything. September is kind of a dicey month for weather, as our typical first freeze is on the 24th (here's my write-up on how to accurately calculate your first and last frost dates), but we had a freak cold spell a few weeks ago (28°F overnight! 🥶) and there are still PLENTY of green tomatoes lingering on our plants. Even with early-maturing varieties, it often feels like we could use an extra week or two to get those juicy babies just a little more red before picking! This weekend the forecast is calling for another freeze, and I reminded a few friends to intentionally put their plants in "distress mode" so they'll hurry up and ripen their fruits sooner. Most tomato plants can survive a couple hours of light frost overnight without damage to the fruit, but they're definitely on their way out—and you should know a few of my favorite tricks to speed up the ripening process.
If you live in a temperate climate where you can keep harvesting tomatoes through fall and winter, I've also got a post for you: how to tell when it's time to pick those tomatoes for the best quality. Hint: It's not always when the fruits are red on the vine! P.S. If frost is looming in the forecast, try these 4 simple tricks for getting your tomatoes to ripen faster on the vine. P.P.S. 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 today.​ |
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."