Saving Tomatoes Past Frost

Question: How do you beat the frost that kills tomato plants?

There are several answers:

1) Go pick all those green tomatoes the afternoon before the predicted frost, bring them inside and let them ripen on the counter, or make fried green tomatoes or green tomato relish.

2) Cover the tomatoes with plastic, but don't let the vines touch the plastic at any point, then uncover them the next morning when the temperature comes up above 40 degrees to get a few more days (maybe a week or two) of additional ripening time. Watch the weather to know when to cover the plants.

3) Before a killing freeze, carefully pull those tomato plants up by the roots and take them inside the garage, shed, or barn. Turn them upside down and hang them from the rafters, a hook, or a line strung up. The tomatoes will ripen on the vine over a period of weeks. To make them ripen faster, put a basket of apples under them. Apples give off ripening gas that will make those tomatoes turn color faster.

If you have high brix tomatoes, they will often last well into January without losing their nutrient value or much of their flavor, and will be slow to spoil.