I got a late start but I got some good results so far. I have harvested a lot of cucumbers and made a half gallon of pickles from them. Best pickles ever for flavor and pretty good in crispness. The tomatoes are producing fruit like crazy just not getting ripe yet. I still have some hope to get some ripe ones before the end of any chance the weather will cooperate. About 1000+ tomatoes growing and another couple thousand flowers. The bin I have them in is WAY too small for that many but the last time I grew them I didn't get anywhere near the size of the plants. Some of them are 7 feet tall. I can't get to the center anymore. If anoyne has any suggestions on how to get the tomatoes to ripen please give a shout. The cukes are grown in 1.5 gallon buckets with a mix of miracle grow soil, peat moss and coconut coir. Too many plants in each bucket but again I got lucky with good fruit production. They are going to start dying from the cool weather but I should get enough for another half gallon, maybe gallon of pickles. The tomatoes are in a 36x36x18 inch high raised bed. Mixed steer manure, compost, miracle grow soil amend, peat moss and coconut coir. 14 plants in there and as you can see it is crowded. I figured it would be more than enough as I grew the same ones a couple years ago and the plants only got 2-3 feet tall and maybe 3 feet spread. I guess I know for next year that I need to spread them out a lot more.
Tomatoes ripen from the inside out, so if your tomatoes look slightly "white" they are ready to ripen. Before a hard frost, we go out and pick any and all of our tomatoes, sort out the ones that are too small or too green, and put the rest on several layers of newspaper on a table in our laundry room. We keep an eye on them, and any that start to develop soft spots we either use the good part immediately, or put into the compost pile. The tomatoes ripen, and we have ripe tomatoes throughout the winter--even as a salad for Christmas dinner!
Well I have time then because the first frost usually doesn't come until December into January. There is some white and some streaks showing on a lot of them now so hopefully soon. My accidental roma just got ripe so the cherry and grape shouldn't be far behind.
I hope so Sjoerd, some of them are starting to turn color so I have some hope. The weather is gonna be less than helpful from here on out. I may have to build a storage rack for the ones that don't get ripe so I have them for longer. Hopefully I get them started much earlier next year.
