So, how have your tomatoes fared this year?
It has not been a stellar tomato season for most in the Pacific Northwest. In a good year, most of us start harvesting the early varieties in mid-July, but that has been pushed back by a few weeks due to our cool spring. If you are experiencing late ripening of your tomato crop, I have a couple of suggestions for you:
- In a ‘normal’ year, I recommend this around the first part of September, but I am doing it now in my own garden and think you should try it too: it is time to prune out a lot of the excess foliage on your tomato vines, especially if the tomato cage is packed full of foliage. Take at least half of the leaves and their short branches off, exposing the green fruit to the sunshine, and opening up the plant to more light and air generally. (I know this seems severe, but trust me and do it.) This will also have the effect of slightly stressing the plant, which also hastens ripening. A couple of weeks from now, remove a few more leaves. By the end of September, remove practically ALL the leaves. I have done this every year, leaving naked branches full of green fruit, and by the time of the first frost all of my tomatoes ripen. It works.
- As you know, indeterminate tomatoes are vines – they continue to grow in length and flower from the tips as they go. This takes a lot of energy for the plant to continue pumping out blooms, so it is time to prune the ends. I cut off the blooming ends right down to the first set of green tomatoes. This will give the plant the energy to ripen the fruit already on the vine, rather than continue to try to produce more.
You should also take a realistic look at each of your tomato vines. Some might be doing better than others at this point in the season. I had two tomato plants in my home garden that for whatever reason had NO fruit on them. What did I do? Yanked them out and put in broccoli raab, which will produce a nice crop for me in about a month and a half. Keep your soil working for you – if something is not productive, cut your losses and move on. There are plenty of fall veggies that you can plant in those vacant spaces, and fall is a great time for many things. Just ask us and we can give you lots of suggestions!











Are you all sick of hearing about tomatoes yet? This’ll be quick – folks always want to know what the favorites were at our annual tomato festival, so here they are, listed in descending order of votes. Sungold and Cherokee Purple were by far the crowd favorites, and tomatoes I would personally recommend you try growing at home. Sungold is a prolific cherry, with a sweet and fruity flavor. Cherokee Purple is a large heirloom with a rich tomato flavor and a deep red-purple color with green shoulders. Both are great additions to the summer garden.
Aren’t we having some great tomato-ripening weather?! I’m hopeful we can get them all ripe before winter arrives – the race is on. And just a reminder: if your tomatoes look as thick with foliage as this one pictured, you really need to grab your clippers and start trimming away some of those leaves – you should be able to see some daylight through the plant. The tomato plant doesn’t need all these leaves now, and you really need to expose the green tomatoes to light and air. Trust me; it seems like a totally brutal thing to do, to cut off so much of the foliage, but you will be rewarded if you do!