Tuesday 23 October 2012

Green Tomatoes anyone?.........



 This year’s challenging weather has thrown another of my normally reliable crops into chaos, my tomatoes, normally one of my best crops which start from mid-July and runs (weather permitting) into October. I even in an attempt to get a really early crop sowed some tomatoes in January and they were at the fruit bearing stage by May but still didn’t ripen until end of July.

My tomatoes have been that bad this year that I have only had 20ish tomatoes so far I had 4 varieties growing, (check my Feburay posts for the full list or my plan for the allotment)all with the promise of a wonderful bounty but this weather has been rubbish not enough sun to ripen and not consistently warm enough throughout the summer.

I had a bit of success with the Yellow pear shaped cherry tomato it cropped ok-ish but I found them to be “fluffy” in texture rather than crisp like you would expect a tomato so although they had great reviews I didn’t really think much of them and will stick to the good old Gardeners Delight for my cherry toms next year

Tomatoes are the only crop now I don’t grow on my allotment, purely because I don’t have a green house on the plot but next year I am thinking of moving my greenhouse up to the plot giving me more room in the garden and the green house will get better sunlight on the plot as it won’t have a fence blocking out the light.

So what to do with my Green tomatoes?, I will try to ripen off some but I find they are not as sweet hanging them upside down, I am not really a fan of Green tomato chutney, but I did see a great recipe for Green tomato soup, I may give that a bash.

I also know a wonderful recipe for pork cider celery & green tomato hotpot which would be great for the family gathering on bon-fire night.

 
Posted by at 6:41 pm

6 comments:

  1. Nome23 October 2012 at 18:45

    Hi Stacy, have you tried using green tomatoes in place of tomatilloes in salsa or green chilli? Worth a try - I made an awesome green chilli with slow-cooked pork with my green tomato haul. Recipe on my blog if you fancy.

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    Replies
    1. Stacy23 October 2012 at 18:53

      that sounds like a nice idea, i am planning on having a "play" in the kitchen over the next few days to see what i can come up with.

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  2. Sue Garrett23 October 2012 at 20:08

    After a poor, slow start all of ours have now turned red, a miracle all things considered!

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  3. Sarah Shoesmith24 October 2012 at 14:52

    I like the sound of the pork, cider, celery and green tomato hotpot - yum! It has been a bad year for tomatoes - I agree with you about green tomato chutney... I can remember bad summers a a child when my Mum would be making green tomato chutney like it was going out of fashion! Here's hoping you can get them to ripen.

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  4. Annie_H2 November 2012 at 15:16

    I didn't have a single tomato ripen on my plants this year! Though I'm at a definite disadvantage as I haven't got a good greenhouse to grow tomatoes in. But I picked many off and they ripened indoors though I agree not as sweet as when they can ripen in the sun! You'll have to let us know what you do with them after your experimentation!

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  5. Anonymous2 November 2012 at 21:10

    I had several good strong Tomato plants down the plot this year (outside) but they succumbed to blight before the toms were fully ripened. I will only be growing them in my greenhouse in future because of blight outside. If you use Bananas? try placing their skins on the soil around the Tomato plants to ripen them, either outdoors or in the greenhouse.

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