My tomatoes are still crowding the greenhouse. I probably should take them down (er, about two weeks ago) but this October the sun and bright and warm has been stretching on, and my tomatoes are still going and going which may be because I never got round to stopping them of course).
You stop tomatoes because fruit has no chance of setting and/or ripening late in the year, but I've found that although smaller, the fruit retains a good flavour, even if you strip it off a dead plant. Green fruits of any size will ripen if put indoors in an earthenware bowl, as long as there's one ripe fruit in the bowl, so after the fruits come down I thread them through bowls, letting the ripen each other, using them as they ripen. I've still been eating tomatoes at Christmas in some years.
I got to this through experimentation, which is helpful for the backgardener, because your terroir, light levels, air-flow etc. will both be quite unique and not necessarily very alterable (my neighbour's trees, for example, aren't an alterable factor). This year's experiments have been quite minimal, but I did hang banana skins in the greenhouse to kick-start ripening, and I think that helped get around my lack of sun; I also took a pruning approach, removing shoots to encourage air-flow and pollinators rather than firmly removing side-shoots... and got more flowers but fewer, smaller fruit. You win some, you lose some.
Experimenting with tomatoes is deliciously easy. They germinate cheerfully, grow mutably and tolerate all manner of exotic abuse. The CRISPR kiddies have been mucking around with tomatoes with predictably exotic results, pink tomatoes, seedless tomatoes.
Aren't they beautiful? Blue ought to be possible, too. I've grown heritage varieties that are quite rich shades of purple (there are heritage pinks too, though none quite as Barbie as these). The fruit bowl of the future is coming, and it's coloured like rainbow unicorns.
You stop tomatoes because fruit has no chance of setting and/or ripening late in the year, but I've found that although smaller, the fruit retains a good flavour, even if you strip it off a dead plant. Green fruits of any size will ripen if put indoors in an earthenware bowl, as long as there's one ripe fruit in the bowl, so after the fruits come down I thread them through bowls, letting the ripen each other, using them as they ripen. I've still been eating tomatoes at Christmas in some years.
I got to this through experimentation, which is helpful for the backgardener, because your terroir, light levels, air-flow etc. will both be quite unique and not necessarily very alterable (my neighbour's trees, for example, aren't an alterable factor). This year's experiments have been quite minimal, but I did hang banana skins in the greenhouse to kick-start ripening, and I think that helped get around my lack of sun; I also took a pruning approach, removing shoots to encourage air-flow and pollinators rather than firmly removing side-shoots... and got more flowers but fewer, smaller fruit. You win some, you lose some.
Experimenting with tomatoes is deliciously easy. They germinate cheerfully, grow mutably and tolerate all manner of exotic abuse. The CRISPR kiddies have been mucking around with tomatoes with predictably exotic results, pink tomatoes, seedless tomatoes.
Aren't they beautiful? Blue ought to be possible, too. I've grown heritage varieties that are quite rich shades of purple (there are heritage pinks too, though none quite as Barbie as these). The fruit bowl of the future is coming, and it's coloured like rainbow unicorns.
No comments:
Post a Comment