Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

���� Three years ago I was told that if I'd pull up my tomato vines, with the tomatoes still attached, and hang them up in my barn that the tomatoes would continue to ripen. My barn is well ventilated and doesn't house any livestock. We expected a hard frost, so I pulled up my vines and hung them up.
���� The tomatoes didn't ripen. All they did was dry up. The vines and stems, being green and succulent, developed a black mildew before drying up. The fruits didn't develop this mildew, but they did shrivel.
���� The man who told me to hang them was surprised. He ventured the opinion that I might've left too many fruits on the vines. He thought my barn may have been too hot and dry for the process to work. He thought there might've been too much air movement, thus drying the fruits too fast. I guess it always worked for him, in his barn.
���� I'll not try it again. If I want my green, end-of-season,�tomatoes to ripen, I think I'll just pick them and place them on a sunny window sill. I may still lose some, but at least I won't have to dispose of the dry, mildewed vines. It's a pain to work with tomato vines, whether to hang them in the green stage or to dispose of them in the dry stage.
��������� -Jesse

Jesse and Group:

I wonder what the temperatures were in your barn. If there was no heat the plants may have approached freezing temps, and that is not good.

Find space in a garage or basement. Pick the tomatoes and place them on shelves or on newspaper, etc. on the floor.

Do NOT put them in the sunlight, but rather in a fairly dark place - and it should be cool but NOT cold.

They will ripen over the course of 4-6 weeks.

Jim Kennard

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