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Re: green tomatoes

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

--- Doreen Howard <doreen@fgi.net> wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List -
>http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>With all the conversation about green tomatoes, it
>got me thinking--sometimes a dangerous habit.     grin>  This is my first 
>autumn to garden in a harsh climate, where frost is an inevitability.  Our 
>first
>freeze will be in about 3-4 weeks, but my tomato
>vines are huge and loaded with fruit in various stages.  So, I hacked back 
>all the stems to full size
>green fruit (still leaves tons) and cut off all the
>small fruit, newly set fruit and blossoms.  The hacking reduced each plant 
>size by half.  I figure
>this drastic pruning would spur the plants into
>ripening the fruit that remains.  The role of every plant is to flower, 
>fruit and set seed in order
>to reproduce itself--or so the theory goes.  I hope
>this works.  Has anyone else used this technique or have I destroyed the 
>fruit that remains??
>Doreen Howard
>Central Illlinois--Zone 5b

Doreen, I did the exact same thing hoping my intuition would prove correct 
(despite my neighbors scratching their heads) & it worked beautifully!! I 
put plastic over the plants & left it there & didn't ever remove it unless 
the temp. under the plastic reached 95-100. I then removed it only for the 
few hours left in the day B4 the night/late afternoon temp. started to drop. 
Low & behold after 2 weeks my plants had more red T's & some nice yellow & 
green ones to save & ripen inside.

I pulled the plants yesterday, cut the green ones off to ripen in a box in a 
cool dry space, & hug the plants with yellow T's left on them upside down 
(roots still there) on a rope in the garage. The garage is attached to the 
house so it doesn't get too cold. I have to leave for the next 7 days or so 
& decided I'd better get the plants out of the garden----we may have a heavy 
frost any day now. Try your theory. I do believe it will work for you!!

Keep the faith!
Gay Stoufer
Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Zone 5
gswanstoufer@hotmail.com




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