The Modern Victory Garden

Dear Laura,

...and now 'summer' is gone, and I have four gorgeous grafted tomato plants, 5' high, covered with....green fruit. I've picked several bowls of almost-ripe, and coaxed them along until I could sauce them, but it's all the green Super Marzano's and Brandywines that I fear will be a loss! I could've SWORN I read somewhere in your blog that you froze tomatoes until you had enough to process?? Did I read write? So WHAT exactly did you do? Surely you didn't blanch-and-peel before freezing this modest mini-harvest...? I know our June/July are to blame, but I still hate to lose all those gorgeous paste maters...:(.

I also wanted you to know about all my dear jalapenos -- you remember I raised them from seed! In the end, I wound up with 18 large pots with mini-jalapenos 'bushes' in them, which did so wonderfully (considering our summer!), actually better than the tomatoes -- I have read in several Hot Pepper Forums that when they taste ripe, they're ripe, and many are already turning red, too (which I never knew jalapenos would do, but I've read that, too) and the few we've tasted are hot -- I plan on freezing them anyway, so I did a 'preemptive mini-harvest' tonight. I almost feel like I should ring the bell and bring them all home, but I will probably give the rest one more week. Just interested in your thoughts!

I have been freezing the ripe tomatoes whole that have been coming in but not in enough volume to do anything with at that time.   I do not freeze the greenies.   I pick tomatoes when they start to crack color and then place them on the counter inside where the temp is a steady 70 plus day and night and they finish ripening up within two days (usually).   If I don't need them for fresh eating and cooking needs, I toss them into a freezer bag and just freeze them as is - skins and all.  

They can be pulled out of the freezer and once partially thawed, the skins usually slip right off - just as if you had blanched them.   They can then be used directly in cooking - either whole or diced up.   They can also be processed into sauce at that time assuming enough quantitiy has been built up.   At the very end of the season I bring in all the remaining fruit that looks like it might color up (i.e. it is basically mature just not ripened) and I lay them flat on cardboard trays and cover them with sheets of newspaper (dark is better than light for slow ripening).  I then check them daily and remove the ones that have ripened up and toss any that are spoiling.   This last big off the vine ripening is usually where the bulk of my tomato harvest comes from.  

On the peppers - it sounds like you should be harvesting them!   I have been harvesting red bell peppers for many weeks now and still have a few more on the bush that will come along later - but the bulk have already been removed and preserved or used. 

Thank you so much Laura. I'll take another look out today -- knowing that freezing the ripe ones works, is a big help!!!

Well, the jalapenos may be small, but there are a ton of them...:)