Off Topic - Free Fresh Tomatoes From The Garden on Jan 3

I ate the last of the fresh tomatoes from my garden last night. How is that possible with two feet of snow covering my entire yard? No, I don't have a greenhouse, and no, I don't refrigerate them, and no, they weren't frozen.

I've used this trick the past few years and it works great. The night before the first hard frost, which was in mid-November this year, I go into the garden and pick every green tomato. I bring them inside and line them up on my window sills in the kitchen and nook. Extras I put in open cardboard boxes, single layer, no stacking. Then I watch. Within 2 weeks some turn pale, then yellow, then red. They all slowly ripen, and the last ones took a full 7 weeks this year to turn bright red. Granted, these aren't as tasty as mid-summer vine-ripened, but they beat the grocery store hot-house-ripened-with-gas tomatoes you get this time of year. Plus, they are free vs. a fortune in the grocery store.

If you want to try this, plant a couple extra tomato plants next May so you have extras in the fall. Then watch the weather reports to be prepared to harvest everything at the last minute. Pick them all, no matter how green. The only ones I leave are the tiny ones. The darker green they are, the longer they'll take to ripen, which extends the season. I've also heard of people pulling up the whole plant, then hanging it upside down in the basement to let the green tomatoes ripen. I'm sure that would work, too, as long as they have some natural light.    

Actually, I do freeze a lot of tomatoes August - November for other uses. I make homemade tomato soup year round, defrost and use them in spaghetti sauce and vegetable soups, and use semi-defrosted ones in my vegetable juicer along with spinach, kale, celery, lemon, & carrot, which makes a delicious V8 type juice (no salt added). I usually plant at least 12 tomato plants, and probably consume tomatoes from my garden in one form or another almost every day year round. Tomatoes are a gold mine for lycopene, plus lots of other vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, etc. Even better if they're organic from your own yard. I freeze the whole tomato, uncut, skin and seeds intact, nothing fancy and no preparation other than washing them first. I line them up whole on a cookie sheet and freeze. Then I put them in ziploc freezer bags. They can't be used in salads when defrosted, but there are a zillion other uses. Remind me and I'll share my tomato soup recipe next summer when we're all drowning in fresh tomatoes.