From Filaree I ordered ROSE DE LAUTREC (Creole), EARLY PORTUGUESE (Turban! I think a first for me), CUBAN PURPLE (Creole)
Last year I ordered from Keene and saved Persian Star-, “a heat tolerant hardneck organic garlic bulbs purple stripe variety , Metechi (Marbled purple stripe), and Creole Purple (Creole) . I was surprised that the purple stripe did better than the Creole, several of which seemed to rotted.
A friend in my zone (7a/b) claimed she took green tomatoes last fall and stored them closed in a box with a banana to get them to break color, and that cool storage of these tomatoes (not fridge) helped them last to Christmas. The forced ripening is one thing, but a tomato not rotting for two months?
Sometimes. I don’t grow tomatoes anymore due to critters eating them. When I did, I would pick the green tomatoes before the first frost and place them into a brown paper bag with an apple. Crimp the top shut and leave in a cool place to ripen. I could have tomatoes into Thanksgiving as they very slowly ripened. I never had enough tomatoes to last all the way into Christmas.
The downsides were: I did have to check the bag in case any tomatoes did show signs of rot. Also the skins on the tomatoes would thicken as they ripened, so the result was not the same as a just-picked ripe tomato.
This was manageable for me because I wasn’t dealing with more than a partially filled grocery bag or two of tomatoes. I grew cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes mostly.
That’s it. The tomatoes release their own ethylene, but you can throw a banana in there if you want. Also, in my experience, a totally green tomato may wrinkle up before it ripens (if it ever does). They should be at least pale.
Any break in color. Before the fall rains set in, we harvest any and everything with a little bit of color, from white on up to orange and red. These (shown in the photo) were picked around 9/20 and stored in our warmish garage - no bag, no banana. My guess is they’ll hang on another week or two before I need to panic.
In prior years, we’ve kept them outside in a well-ventilated, much cooler green house, and they’ve lingered quite a bit longer. Mid-November was not atypical, and I recall some years right up until Christmas.
A little backstory. Ever since I’ve been gardening on my balcony (about 15 years now), I’ve dreamed of having enough Anaheim peppers to make a chiles rellenos casserole. But I’d never had more than two that were big enough to harvest at the same time. Until this year.
I planted my garlic last weekend (in the middle of a nor’easter right now). I also ordered from Keene. Since I always have mixed luck with garlic, I’ve scaled back the last few years. What did survive last year, was great, but I only got about 1/3 of what I planted. Between something going wonky over-wintering and critters digging them up, they only about 1/2 sprouted in the when it got warmer. I have a new spot this year, so we’ll see if they will fare better. I like garlic with kick, so I have a few Asian varieties that are supposed to have some good fire (Korean red, Asian Tempest, etc.).
Leek harvesting day. We ended up with two sheet-pans full of trimmed leeks. I’ll keep enough around to cook from fresh for a few weeks, and the rest will be prepped for the freezer: chopped, sauteed, and portioned.
We snipped the remaining chives for the season the afternoon before the real freeze. Snippets into the dehydrator for later use. Some longer pieces were frozen. It was a very long chive season here (NW Rockies) this year.
The leeks like a loamy soil. We use a commercially available raised bed mix with lots of compost stirred in. We grow them in pots with good drainage, where they do well, although find they require a lot of water with all that good drainage. They require mounding, as well, for the best return. We use cloth pots (recycled plastic), which lets us turn down the sides when we plant them, and raise the sides as we build the soil up over the season. Not difficult to grow, but always a question as when to harvest. You want them as big as possible, obviously, but if they start to bolt, they develop a hard core down the center. DH is the master leek keeper, and this year it looks like he called it just right.
Those leeks look amazing. I tried planting them this summer, but didn’t get anything. Most didn’t sprout, and what did often fell victim to critters. Will have to try again next season.
