Last Tomatoes for 2022

Veggie Garden burned out at the end of a long season

The corn and squash are definitely done. The broccoli made a second charge at flowering during the Indian summer a few weeks ago. They broke through the plastic varmit barriers, and spilled into the middle of the path between a couple of beds where they proceeded to go wild. The chickens will take care of that.

The hot pepper plants are still hanging in there, but I picked most of the peppers still worth picking last week as a last addition to Batch 22 of the fermented hot sauce.

The Roma tomato isn’t much to look at, but…

One bright spot is a Roma tomato in a bed on the south end of the garden. The twine that held it up on the support teepee snapped in the rain and wind earlier this month, so the plant spilled outward and just kind of hangs there now. The inner portions are dead, but the outer portions continue to grow despite the freeze/heat cycle it goes through every day. It’s even flowering.

More remarkable, however, is it’s still producing fruit. I found several young, green tomatoes, probably half a dozen green/orange and heading to red, and another half-dozen or so ready to pick.

The Roma still has young green tomatoes

Even some tomatoes halfway between green and ripe

We’re going to have garden fresh tomatoes in December! Maybe not very far into December (I see frost damage creeping on the outer leaves), but December nonetheless.

Tomatoes fresh off the vine at the end of November

Awesome! A very good surprise at the end of the season.