Time to pick the garden!

So it's supposed to freeze tonight, so I went out and harvested my tomatoes, peppers and squash. Of course all my tomatoes are green. Since this is the first time I have had late tomatoes, I don't really know how to get them to ripen. I see online that some put them in a paper bag and in a dark place and others put them in the window sill.

Any suggestions from fellow Montanans, who garden?
Permalink
tags: gardening, canning, green, tomatoes + add tags
savecancel
posted on Wed, Oct 08, 2008 05:57 PM
CommentsRSS Feed
Want to leave a comment? Log In to your account
woops bycowgirlmedic October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
My picture didn't post. I guess it didn't really need one :-)
My two cents... bydanie006 October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
Hey CGM! We've had the best success at ripening tomatoes on our south-facing front porch on a card table. The porch is big enough so it is mostly shady thru the day; they probably get about two hours of direct sunlight daily. The tomatoes seem to be happy and they eventually ripen.

This year we had about 30 plants AND we weren't affected by the nasty hail storms, so we are swimming in tomatoes. We can about 1/2 of the bunch, dehydrate about 1/4, and put the remainder in paper bags and freeze them whole.
RE: My two cents... bycowgirlmedic October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
Wow! 30 plants? You are some tomato eating fools! We only have 7 (3 indoors, 4 outdoors). I am looking at about 30 lbs of tomatoes I picked today and am planning on canning them myself. I also got about 2 pickings of 10 lbs of tomatillos and made salsa with that...yum! I've got peppers that I have no idea what they are because I didn't mark them (slaps self), so I am just gonna chop, cook and taste as I go.

It's good to hear that someone else cans. I know it's hard work, but gosh, nothing tastes better.

When you freeze your tomatoes whole-what do you use them for later on? I am guessing soups and stews, but that's what canning is for LOL
two cents, part II bydanie006 October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
A question, actually....Are squash and pumpkins (the fruit part, not the plants) affected by a hard frost? Can I leave them out in the field, or will they be wrecked in the morning?
RE: two cents, part II bycowgirlmedic October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
Oooh I dunno. I picked what was sizable to eat and am praying for the rest. My guess is that they don't freeze up like other veggies do because they consist of less water.

What do you do with your squash? I can't eat it fast enough to cook it. Can you can it?
A box byMrs Claus October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
We just bring our tomatoes in and store them in the spare room in a box. They ripen just fine there. Every two or three days we sort them into another box and when we have enough we can them.

Squash and pumpkins should be brought in before a hard frost. The frost will damage the squash, and then it will rot.

Last year I sliced, seasoned (Italian) and dried a bunch of tomatoes. I reconstitute them in some warm water, drain, put a bit of olive oil on them and use them like sun-dried tomatoes. Fantastic!!

There are 17 pints of homemade sauerkraut sitting on our counter today. Sometimes I just love having a retired husband! He makes his own salsa,too. He gets a jar of those tomatoes and makes something that will cause fire to emit from the ears.
RE: A box bycowgirlmedic October 10, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
I am trying the paper bag trick. But do you put them at room temperature or should I put it in the coolest part of the house?

Your dried tomato recipe sounds wonderful!

As for salsa, I got 8 pints of tomatillo salsa yesterday. No fire emitting from the ears though...it's hard to spice up tomatillos for some reason. I think they are just a bit too sweet/tart.

I tried my hand at jelly yesterday, but ended up realizing I had no powdered pectin (had liquid), so I made some great apple syrup LOL!

I am new at this canning stuff, but it's become very rewarding.
Squash plans bydanie006 October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
We put our acorn and buttercup squash in a burlap bag and store it in the basement. It does pretty good (we live in an old farm house).

Last time I looked I think we have about 15 - 20 eating size squash this year in the garden. We'll eat baked squash at least once a week. yum, yum! My kids eat it like it is going out of style, especially when baked w/ brown sugar and butter. I'm not a big fan of frozen zucchini (our other squash), so whatever is left will be fed to the chickens. Actually, they (the chickens) eat overgrown zucchini and cukes (think VW bus size)thru the year.
RE: Squash plans bycowgirlmedic October 10, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
Yeah we give our VW bus squash to the chickens too. They LOVE it!
Canned Tomatoes bydanie006 October 08, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
So far we've canned about 35 pints of tomatoes and made about 8 quarts of tomato juice. We eat a lot of tomato-based hot dish (casseroles, you know)and pasta over the winter. We'll also give away a lot of jars to relatives/friends over the year as well. My wife also makes some killer fresh salsa, but that is the uncannable variety so we'll eat that during the summer and fall.

We grew a trial tomatillo plant. It grew like crazy but produced very little fruit. Not sure what we did wrong with that guy.

Peppers of all varieties didn't do well this year. Low growth, small fruit.
Rippening tomatoes! byFreedomfighter October 09, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
we have so many veggies this year, and we didnt want to can all of them right away. So we stored our tomatoes in the basement wrapped in blankets. It does take some space because you cannot stack them on top of one another. This method helps them to rippen slower so you can enjoy your own fresh veggies for a little longer. since we have canned over 350 quarts of food this year it has made it a little easier to space the work out. This also works for other veggies, like carrots, potatoes,beets. To fast rippen just put them in a paper bag.
RE: Rippening tomatoes! bycowgirlmedic October 10, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
350 qts? My goodness! You must have one heck of a garden!
Garden byMontanaChick October 09, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
Tomatoes - I have put my green ones in a cardboard box and they are ripening nicely. They seem to do it faster in the dark, so close the box top Keep them at a temp that isn't too warm because some will turn faster than the others.

Peppers - These are great because they freeze so well. You don't have to blanch, just wash, cut, and place into freezer bags.

Squash - Will freeze if you leave it outside. This year I learned that you can shred and freeze zucchini. I've been using frozen shredded zucchini to make zuke bread. I haven't tried with other squashes but I imagine it would work as well.
RE: Garden bycowgirlmedic October 10, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
We use a lot of our peppers for chili's and whatnot, freezing is the best way to go from what I have seen. I made the mistake of freezing them whole and they ended up SO soggy. I'm learnin!
RE: Garden byMrs Claus October 11, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
You can freeze jalapeno peppers whole. Don't thaw them to use, just put them in what you're cooking. They shatter nicely in the food processor.
RE: Garden bycowgirlmedic October 12, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
Thanks Claus.
Survival of the Freezing Fittest Squash bydanie006 October 09, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
Despite the hard frost last night all but one squash looked like they made it through. I'm going to pick them this afternoon.

My sunflowers look like they've been thru the ringer.

I forgot to shut off the lawn sprinkler system last night. The yard looked like a pointy skating rink this morning.
RE: Survival of the Freezing Fittest Squash bycowgirlmedic October 10, 2008 (0 votes) (report abuse)
Then you got lucky! Hope you got all your stuff out before last night. Man oh man it was COOOOLD last night. Hubby and I went out to eat and fought over who would go warm up the car for the first time this year.

It's plain COLD now. I wish this crazy wind would let up!
Tomatoes byArt October 09, 2008 (1 votes) (report abuse) (reply)
We only put out tomato plants so that people will think we are optimists.
We weren't very good in geography in school, either.