Fall Harvest, Tomatoes Upon Tomatos

With the new chill in the air everything is slowing down and going into hibernation, this is the time that you will want to harvest your garden.  Harvest time is usually right before the first frost, on October 1st I moved to a new home and had to do my fall harvest a little early.  I was worried because I had tons of green tomatoes that hadn't turned red yet.  I was talking to my neighbor and she said "you can pick them green and they will turn on their own."  I thought why not try I'm going to lose them anyway.

The Great Turning Tomato Trick

All these tomatoes were green when I put them in the box

At the end of the season harvest all of your tomatoes Red, Green, yellowish... just pick them all.

You can either put them in a box with just the unripe tomatoes or with a banana (bananas release a chemical that speeds the ripening process).  Put the box in a dark place aka pantry, closet and after a few days they will start to ripen. 

Here are some of my tomatoes that were all green when I picked them on October 1st, by October 14th most of them had turned red.  Some tomatoes took a few days while others have taken a couple weeks but it works!

My little tomato sorter, and the tomatoes that ripened after two weeks of storage

P.S. I had to move my raspberry and strawberry plants.  It would have been ideal if I had moved them once it had frosted so the plants would have been hibernating.  Wish me luck on the transfer and I guess we will only know how it worked in April/May when the garden starts growing again.