Waiting for the frost and more green tomatoes

Beautiful Mount Baker and the sisters view  from the Lummi Island ferry dock 

Looking out at the fresh snow on Mount Baker is a good reminder that the first killing frost is not long off. Of course the trick is knowing when it will hit my garden and of that I'm not certain.

My neighbors a few miles down the road have all had a hard frost.  Not me! My garden seems to have a nice warm micro-climate this year.When I woke up yesterday morning and checked the temperature it was just dipping into the 30's at 39 degrees, still a lot of wiggle room for a hard freeze. But that little nippiness made me nervous.


Last week I posted about ripening some of my green tomatoes indoors.  At that time I harvested 1 box of fully developed green tomatoes and ripened those in my kitchen.  I still have 3 or 4 from that batch that are partially ripe and the rest have found their way into salsas, salads and tomato sandwiches.


This morning I felt was the right time to finish the harvest.  I had so many beautiful green tomatoes on my 5 remaining roma plants that I couldn't justify risking the frost taking a bite out of them.  With pruners in hand, I snatched up all the ones that looked fully developed and left only a few of the small weak ones on the plants.

Can you believe the loads of tomatoes still going in October? 

These Roma won't be as sweet as sun-ripened.

They will be better than store bought!

These tiny yellow pear tomatoes should be ready for topping

my autumn lettuce salad by next week

I've placed them all in shallow boxes with newspaper covers and added a ripened apple to assist the process.  I came away with 3 boxes of them!  What a fantastic harvest!

p.s - My dahlias are still blooming!