The Lone Survivor
28-Sep-2005
This morning I pulled all but one of my tomato plants and have sent them off with the city yard waste man to be made into lovely compost for next year. In case you are not aware, you should never put spent tomato plants in home compost as it won’t get hot enough to kill all the diseases that tomatoes carry and you can easily introduce problems into your garden that way.
I had actually already pulled my yellow pear and Green Zebra plants a couple of weeks ago. The pear just had issues from the beginning and I really should have pulled it much sooner. The Green Zebra was one of my plants that didn’t perform as expected this year. So today I pulled two cherry tomato plants and Ceylon, an heirloom variety. The cherry tomatoes had both produced excellently but over the last few weeks I haven’t been able to keep up with them and most of the tomatoes on the plants had split from just getting too ripe. Even many of those that still looked intact would split as I picked them. I managed to harvest several dozen before pulling the plants so I’ll still have tomatoes for some time to come.
My one remaining plant has been doing very nicely. It is San Marzano, the Italian plum tomato that is the pride of Italy and is prized as a canned tomato. The flesh is solid with few seed so they make great sauce. In San Marzano, these plants grow in volcanic soil which produces huge, sweet, flavorful tomatoes. I don’t have volcanic soil, but I was really pleased with this plant last year and again this year. The size of the tomatoes is pretty amazing. The one caveat is that they need a long growing season – something we are not known for here in the Pacific Northwest – but they’ve worked well for me the last couple of years. I pulled many of the leaves and cut branches without fruit so that all the plant’s energy could go toward those last few fruits. I’m going to leave them on the vine as long as possible, although with our night temperatures dropping I may be forced to harvest them soon. The nice thing about tomatoes is that as soon as they have started to change color you can actually pick them and they will continue to ripen. The flavor will not be quite as rich but they will still be 100 times better than tomatoes from the grocery store! Some years I actually pull the plant with the fruit on it, then hang it upside down in my little storage shed to protect them from the elements. The tomatoes will continue to pull sustenance from the vines and ripen as though they were still planted! There have been some years that by doing this I’ve had "garden" tomatoes will into December!
Anyway, this definitely means that summer is over. I was just a little sad as I pulled those plants this morning.
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Culinary Fool 
Your tomato plants did quite well compared to mine. My yellow pear died about a month ago along with a larger yellow tomato plant (lemony?). The remaining plants had lots of fruit which ripened but the leaves all died and dried up. I pulled it all out two weeks ago. Maybe next year I\’ll have better luck. Over previous summers I have had plants which kept producing through November and early December.
Hi Sylvie!I think it was just an odd year overall for tomatoes. Turns out even my friends who told me there\’s were doing well pulled theirs a couple weeks ago! That\’s not well! What are they thinking!?! :-) The leaves dying is actually a sign of one of the maladies that tomatoes get – I can\’t remember which one at the moment. Oh well, there\’s always next year! ~ B
I did not know that about putting Tomatoes into your compost pile. That certainly explains a lot! My Compost now resembles the trash heap in Fraggle Rock. I\’m just too overwhelmed to do something about it b/c it\’s so out of control. Anyways. thanks for the tip. I\’ll keep it in mind for the next one.
Hi Mie!Mine have been out of control before, too. The good thing is that with time it will take care of itself – but it will take longer. However, I have to say that it feels really good to actually work with it to get it all sorted out – even when it seems overwhelming. But either way you can\’t really go wrong – that\’s the good news! :-) ~B
I had a bad year for tomatoes too. My salad tomatoes did ok (got a basket at a plant fair – a treat to have tomatoes in May here in Northern Virginia) but nothing else even fruited! Frustrating! I had a baby in February so the garden was not as much of a focus as in other years. Last year I planted Yellow Pears, German Striped, and Roma. I never have tried a Green Zebra although I am curious. I have done the upside-down post-frost harvest too, but I found the flavor to be a little off. Perhaps it was getting too cold at night. Keep up the good work on this site – I\’m going to try the crab quiche this weekend!
Thanks ZBB! I just read your venison recipe and it sounds wonderful! I\’m having a dinner later this month and was planning on featuring vension, too – must be the fall thing! :-) Did you turn your comments off? I was going to leave one but coudn\’t…~ B
I did indeed turn them off – my husband\’s wishes, unfortunately.There are several people with whom I exchange comments, but for peace\’s sake it will just be limited to me commenting on their sites, yours certainly included. I have a few more good recipes. I\’ll be sure to post them soon!