I’m in zone 6 and had a citrus tree that FLOURISHED outside last summer but hit a wall when I brought it back in. Had to chuck it. I loved that tree so much!
we have it in a south-facing window and run a warm mist humidifier next to it once our heat is on. I think that’s the only thing that kept it alive.
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The bushes in full sun are still doing great. The bush in the shady part of the deck needs to go… it looks like a typical (for my area) October tomato plant. 
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Very impressed @BunsenBurner, I have nothing but green tomatoes. I just pulled out Amish Paste, it did nothing for me, zilch, nada, not sure why.
I also started some clean up today. Pulled most of my zinnias even though they’re still producing pretty flowers when stripped of their leaves they look great in a vase. We actually don’t have any frost in the 10 day forecast, but I just wanted to get started so I don’t have too much to do in November.
But I won’t cut the dahlias until frost…they’re still GORGEOUS. Cut down some mangy looking perennials.
The one plant that drove me crazy this year is my heavenly blue morning glories. I had 5 areas with them and the vines grew beautifully!! Got huge!! But only started showing buds about 2 weeks ago, and started getting first blooms last week. There are a million tiny buds but only a handful of blooms each day. I doubt they’ll have a chance to really get going. Such a disappointment, I feel like they should have started blooming in the summer. Any ideas on why the blooming started so late? The only fertilizer I used on them was a bloom booster organic type (high in phosphorus, low in nitrogen).
I pulled my tomato plants today; they had lots of green tomatoes, not like Bunsen’s red beauties above. I’ve never cooked anything with green tomatoes, not sure if it’s worth it…. There’s no chance they’ll ripen indoors, is there?
I’ve been knee deep in cleanup since we hit 32 last week here in PA - I have a ~20-pound box of green tomatoes and had read a tip online that when I want some to ripen, I should take out what I need and stick them in a paper bag with a banana. Even when there’s not a hint of blush on them.
We’ll see how that goes, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll just have lots of fried green tomatoes!
We planted about four 4x8 raised beds of garlic today. My hubby harvested his tobacco plants’ seed pods - first time he’s trying to save seeds. I harvested a boatload of turnips/rutabagas/radishes - stew is in our future!
Gorgeous day for it. Rain expected Monday and then dipping below freezing at night, so it was time.
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I’m harvesting mine soon too. Next year I won’t pull them out so fast. My second crop is a failure this year. I just threw a bunch of vegetable seeds down, hoping the rain would sprout some. But no more summer crop until Feb.
I didn’t have a great tomato year, but the ones that were pulled off green for various reasons (i.e. when I accidentally broke a branch, ones that got knocked down by critters, etc) all ended up ripening on my kitchen table.
They will ripen indoors.
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We got walloped with rain the last 2 days. Almost an inch at my house! Temps are finally lower, so everything that was barely surviving during the summer has now woken up for our 6 month long growing season.
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YES! I’m in northern Ohio and I pick all my green tomatoes this time of year tiny to big and put them in a brown paper bag (sometimes I do two bags - one for smaller “grape” type tomatoes, one bag for larger tomatoes. I roll the paper bag closed and set it in on the kitchen counter where it doesn’t get too warm. Once a week I check them. (that’s part of the fun!) they ALL turn red eventually. I had a bag of probably 40 small ones and in a week about half of them went from green to nicely red. They still taste great.
Oh I’m so glad—I was going to compost them because I’m not a fan of green tomatoes—glad I saved them! I look forward to checking the bag!!
make sure they are dry before you put them in the bag. If I have quite a few green ones we are usually eating our last “turned ripe” tomatoes around Thanksgiving!
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I have been doing a similar thing with my green tomatoes. I used to leave them on newspaper or equivalent in a single layer in my pantry. They ripen eventually! Make sure the ones you put in bags etc. are dry and have no cracks or soft spots.
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I do nothing, no wrapping on anything and they ripen up in my counter eventually.
The bag promotes the release of ethylene which aids in the ripening process. Usually faster than the counter method.
This is also helpful for those of us NOT in warm climates where this time of year even on the counter there is less light/sun/warmth.
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I put unripened tomatoes in a brown bag—they ripen nicely. I live in New England, so it’s a short growing season and being able to use those last tomatoes is great. I picked all my Amish paste tomatoes yesterday. I think I have enough to make tomato paste. If you’ve never made tomato paste—you are missing out on a real treat. You need lots of tomatoes for a small amount of paste but the result is magical.
This is the recipe I use. I store the paste in canning jars. I have tried putting the paste in ice cube trays and freezing but IMO some of the flavor is lost when frozen. I also put my paste jars in a water bath. I don’t put the jars in the fridge until I open the jar.
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Wow, this might be a fun thing to try. Our farmers markets start selling tomatoes pretty cheaply this time of year because they need to move the last tomatoes along.
The recipe says a jar will keep in the refrigerator for up to a year! That is very generous - even if it lasted a few months that would be excellent.
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I bought a food mill a few years back and I haven’t been able to use it, no paste tomato here.
I don’t have brown bag so I just put my tomatoes next to the bananas, that usually works.