And it's time for Tomato Talk- Ha ha ha ha ha.
You may not find old men laughing with a Boston accent funny, But there are some funny things you should do to your tomato plants now to get a better harvest, better taste, and better storage and ripening of the October stragglers.
Step one- start to cut back on water. Not yet, but in a week or two- September first at the latest. Less water will force the fruit that is already set to ripen, give the fruit a richer, sweeter flavor, and make the tomatoes much better suited to storage. A watery tomato is less flavorful, more fragile, and duh- watery. I usually stop watering a few plants completely in mid August, others not until the end of September, but everybody gets less- water-, so I will get more- tomatoes.
If your plants are still producing succulent green growth, and fresh blossoms in September, it isn't producing what you want. A September bloom will produce green tomatoes for the slugs to eat. Stop watering, and you will force the plant to finish the blooms it set in August instead of trying to put on more fruit that wouldn't ripen until December
The holy grail of many tomato growers is vine ripened fruit- in Iowa. Anytime the temperature falls below fifty degrees at night, tomato plants produce starchy- not sweet fruit. In the midwest, it stays hot and sticky all night, and vine ripened tomatoes are the reward for dealing with the weather.
In Oregon, by September, temperatures often fall into the 40's at night. The result is a mushy mealy tomato. The solution? Pick your fruit when it turns pink. Pick it in the late afternoon. Let it finish ripening in the house, and you will have something close to the Iowa vine ripened fruit without the humidity, tornadoes, or annoying presidential candidates.
Finally, pick your pink tomatoes for winter storage in late September, before the first fall rains. Wrap them in newspaper, store them in a cool dry place, and you'll have ripe red fruit when Santa comes.
Maybe leave the old man a plate of tomatoes instead of cookies- How Sweet. Ha ha ha ha ha.
