Originally posted in October 2015 and still great information about prolonging your tomato harvest.
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| Photo taken October 25, 2014 |
Whether by global warming or just a local climate hiccup, this year’s unusual fall weather has gardeners happily plucking tomatoes from the vine past Halloween. Most years, however, we have to consider the eventual demise of our tomato production in late September or early October. October 9 is our average first frost date in Denver, but 1944 holds the record, when frost wasn’t seen until November 15th! (guess it was busy freezing the Ardennes Forest over in Europe that year).
If you want to maximize your tomato output through first frost, follow these simple steps in late August or early September:
1. Ruthlessly evaluate and prune your tomato plants. Vines with only flowers? Out. Vines with tiny green tomatoes? Out. Leave only the tomatoes you think have a chance of maturing before first frost.
2. Shock your tomato plants. No, this doesn’t mean gardening in your thong. The act of pruning, above, will stimulate the plant to bring the remaining fruit to maturity. But you can also use your shovel to cut some of the plant’s roots (dig straight down with your shovel 3-4 places in a circle around the plant, 6+ inches out from the base of the plant) and reduce total water to the plants by a third or more.
3. As the weather cools, cut remaining foliage back so the sun strikes the remaining fruit during the day. The additional solar heat will help them mature.
