Season continues for some gardeners

'Azoychka' yellow tomato Oct 13, 2014

If you were lucky you escaped Oct 12 scattered frosts or covered tender plants and will be rewarded with an extended growing season. We've been in a pattern of cold-hot-cold-hot. This is expected to continue with temperatures again predicted to reach 80 degrees F in a couple days. Life in the high altitude, steppe climate of Denver, Colorado is always a roller coaster ride.

Tomatoes remaining on the vine will continue to ripen and zucchini will continue to grow larger. Just like betting when to plant warm season crops in spring, deciding when to shut down the warm season garden in fall is a challenge. I know some gardeners who have already torn out their gardens. How many more frost "escapes" will us late season garden gamblers have?

Zucchinis Oct 13, 2014

Of course tomatoes still on plants showing some color such as the yellow Azoychkas in the photo above may yet ripen on the vine. The ace in the hole is they are good candidates for picking and ripening indoors if a hard freeze is predicted (overnight temperatures expected to fall into the mid to upper twenties F). Green ones that are small probably won't have a chance but the largest can be harvested and used as fried green tomatoes.

'Bulls Blood' beet and 'Red Russian' kale
Oct 13, 2014

Meanwhile mid-summer planted, cool season crops such as the beets and kale in the photo will tolerate early frosts. The flavor of kale only improves once frosts begin in earnest. This is shaping up to be a year for warm season vegetable harvests to extend late into fall and cool season crops rewarding the savvy gardener with fall harvests as they always do.

Photo credits: Azoychka tomato, Zucchini, 'Bulls Blood' beet and 'Red Russian' kale all credit Carl Wilson.

Pick and ripen tomatoes when frost threatens

While warm weather can linger well into September along Colorado's Front Range, temperatures can also drop unexpectedly. The earliest September freeze in Denver occurred on September 8, 1962 when the temperature dropped to 31 degrees F. I’m certainly hoping for a warm fall but will be prepared to mount a tomato “rescue” if things look dicey.

Covering plants to trap heat from the soil is often enough to get through a short one or two night situation. Extended days of cold particularly when accompanied by cooling moisture (rain or snow) are more problematic. In those cases, harvest fruit before the frost event and ripen indoors.

Pick fruit with even a hint of color. Also harvest green tomatoes with a glossy green appearance that are at least three-fourths of their full size. Remove stems. Wash fruit under a stream of water and allow to air dry on clean towels. Make immediate use of any damaged fruit and save only blemish free tomatoes for ripening.

Low humidity causes fruit to shrivel while high humidity promotes mold. Pack fruit one layer deep in cardboard boxes in a room out of direct sun. Another option is wrapping individual fruit in sheets of newspaper or waxed paper if you have problems with shriveling.

Some gardeners have success with hanging whole plants upside down in a shed or basement to let fruits ripen gradually. In our dry climate, fruit handled this way tends to shrivel from low humidity.

Monitor fruit condition every few days. Remove fruit that has started to spoil before rots move to adjacent fruit. Ethylene gas produced by ripening tomatoes is a ripening hormone. Remove ripe fruit from the immature ones to slow ripening. Allow ripe fruit to remain to speed ripening of the rest of your tomato harvest.

Green fruit will ripen in about two weeks at 65 to 70 degrees F and about 3 weeks at 55 degrees. Storage below 50 degrees F will result in fruit with a bland, off-flavor. Never store tomatoes in the refrigerator if you want full flavor.

Photo credit: Range of tomato maturities on vine and Harvested tomatoes in box - Carl Wilson