How to keep tomatoes over winter.

[braggscowboy]

Living here in Easttern Oklahoma we sometimes do not get a great deal of rain in the summer months (when you want it). But, last year was an exception. We had lots of rain and retired and got out a pretty good garden. I had about a dozen tomato plants here at the house and about that at the barn. The ones here at the house came from Lowe's. The plants come from Alabama, they said on the plant. The others at the barn did not come from Lowe's. The ones here at the house made all the tomatoes we could eat and give away. Before it started to freeze hard I started gathering a few green ones at a time and bringing them into the house to a back room that is not heated and to the garage that is not either. To make a long story short, I have had tomatoes from Oct. until now and still have about 3 doz. about the size of golf balls to tennis balls and they tast really good. I would spread them out in a box and if one got bad, I would throw it out. They would shrivel a little around the stem area, but did not effect the flavor. I did pull some on the vine and put in feed sack and they did fine also. Don't know if that will work every year or not, but sure hope so. Had some last night on Indian tacos. Hope that will help someone with this. I know it is done by many of you. Will buy the same plant again. Did not loose any to rust. Some did get so big that they would break over.

[RedneckPete]

Just before the killing frost we used to wrap green tomatoes up with newspaper, then store them somewhere dark and cool. Once a week or so we would take a peek at each one and harvest the ripe and almost ripe ones, and toss the ones that went bad. Can't say we ever had "fresh" tomatoes into February, but they certainly went well beyond the end of the normal season.

Pete

[Shrek]

Pete,

I still got 2 paper ream boxes of green maters in the closet from mid November.

I had to teach a friend that being a nightshade plant tomatoes ripened in the dark when he had many rotten maters on his counter top.

[Windy in Kansas]

I haven't a clue now but do remember reading some years ago about a variety that had extended length storage capability. I tend to think it was a Burpee variety so you might want to write them. It runs in my mind that they were said to store for six weeks. You've already gotten that with your variety but I expect theses might store even longer.

Some people also pull the plants right before a frost and hang them upside down in a dark basement or such. Supposedly the moisture in the stems provides it to the tomatoes until naturally ripe.

If a person were to use season extenders such as large cones or tunnels with some bricks inside to provide a thermal mass one might get the last few tomatoes even later which if they lasted as long as yours would be further weeks into the new year.

Slightly unrelated, my mother told that her dad stored watermelons in a bin of wheat one year and extended the use of them to the point that they had watermelon for Christmas dinner. That would have been in zone 5.

Glad to read of your season extension method.

[PonderosaQ]

Burpee carries two varieties of long keeping tomatoes, Long Keeper and Red Oct.
I think Long Keeper was the first one developed and keeps 6 weeks or so and Red Oct is supposed to keep twice as long. They give you one huge crop right at the end of the season. I am still eating tomatoes I picked green off those plants. I just put them in the dark in a brown paper bag. I haven't had any go bad, even the one that got nicked just seemed to dry up round the nick. Some of them have shrivelled a bit but they still taste better than those cardboard things that are in the store now.
PQ

[Jim S.]

We just finished the last maters from Dad's garden last week. We had left them green on the windowsill, and the last two had begun to sprout inside.

[Marcia in MT]

We grow Longkeepers and they really do keep without having to wrap them up or otherwise worry about them -- just keep them in a box. Their main problem is that they are not bright red inside -- more orange. The newer variety is supposed to have fixed that, but I have *so* many Longkeeper seeds that it'll be quite a while before I run out!