All The Rest Of The Tomatoes Ripening

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Bob Bauer
November 12, 2018 (Last Updated: ) | Reading Time: 2 minutes

November 12, 2018

All the rest of the tomatoes ripening in my cardboard box have turned red. Even the small ones. I guess the warmth of the guest room hastened them along. They will be the last ones that I eat like an apple because store bought ones get sliced. Most gardeners know the joy of having an abundance of tomatoes because they put out so many fruit through the summer..

If I were to grow only one veggie, it would be a tomato plant. Gardening can be as complex or as simple as you want it. It's adjustable to many lifestyles, from a container on the porch, to endless rows of numerous crops. Crawling along in freshly tilled soil poking seeds in the ground is not something everyone wants to do, but picking a bowl full of ripe tomatoes every three days is..

November 13, 2018

November is apple picking time. One year I stored them in our veggie refrigerator and they dried out quickly. The dehumidifier in the fridge sucked their moisture right out through their skin. That's why commercially stored apples have a thin coating of wax on them. I now store them like my onions, in an unheated room, in open cardboard boxes, in a single layer so they get plenty of air circulation..

I know apples used to be stored in barrels so maybe they don't need as much air exposure as I give them. It may be that having them crowded helps keep them from drying out. Green tomatoes can be individually wrapped in newspaper and stored for ripening so they don't need any air circulation. Onions need air, that's why they are sold in mesh bags..

November 14, 2018

We've had five nights of 18° to 20° and the broccoli florets are still not burned. I'm impressed. They are typically not that cold tolerant, but this year got slowly introduced to cold, and produced antifreeze to protect themselves. I picked them, then pulled up the plants because they are done for this season. I've overwintered them before but end up just pulling them up in the spring because they don't seem to recover. The cold has encouraged the trees to drop their leaves so you can get free fertilizer and mulch without too much raking now. I will store some for the spring instead of putting them all on the garden now..

Contractor size trash bags work well. In my dream potting shed they would go on top of a bale of straw. The straw would be next to bags of compost. I would have some wood chips, sand, pea gravel, peat moss, and steer manure. The actual potting would go on in the greenhouse where it's always warmer..

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