A Tomato Trick, Straight from Russia

Here in the Willamette Valley Oregon, our tomato season usually wraps up by mid to late September — but my husband, who grew up in Russia with an even shorter growing season, taught me a trick that stretches ours by months.

When the weather starts turning too cool for them to ripen on the vine, or too wet, or threatens frost, he picks every green tomato still on the vine and brings them indoors, laying them top-down on newspaper spread across the floor.

He said that in Russia, his family kept them under a bed. Here we put them in a corner of the living room that we don't often use.

Left alone, they ripen slowly, just a few at a time. We've had fresh, ripe garden tomatoes as late as Christmas this way — a simple trick that turns the end of the season into a much longer one!

Cooler Days, Fresh Crops

This is the time of year when some of us wish we had a fence or hedge around our vegetable garden! One day it all looks beautiful, and suddenly it appears to be going downhill fast...

But take heart;

It's not too late to plant. Lettuce, spinach, kale, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, beets, radishes, and turnips all thrive once the weather cools down.

Tuck a few seeds or transplants into any empty bed or container you have right now — even a small window box has room for a round of radishes or greens.

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Stretch the Season a Little Longer

A simple row cover or cold frame can protect your plants from that first light frost, buying you extra weeks of harvest.

Water in the mornings, keep the soil consistently moist, and harvest often — vegetables picked regularly tend to taste better than ones left to sit.

Time to Close Out the Summer Garden

Before frost settles in for good, walk your garden with a short checklist in mind: harvest anything left on the vine, pull spent or diseased plants, and add the healthy debris to your compost pile.

Loosen and enrich the soil with compost or aged manure, save seeds from your best performers, and add a layer of mulch to protect the soil over winter.

Clean and store your tools, and jot down a few notes on what worked and what you'd do differently — future you will be grateful come spring.

Visit our Free Vegetable Garden Printables page to access all of our helpful charts and downloads, such as the one shown below. free-vegetable-garden-printables.html

Back to School, Back to the Garden

With so many of us settling into a new school year — homeschool included — it's a great time to bring the garden indoors as a learning tool.

Understanding how a plant grows from seed to harvest is a simple, hands-on science lesson kids genuinely enjoy.

Grab our free printable plant life cycle worksheet to use at the kitchen table or in the classroom: vegetable-gardening-online/plant-life-cycle-worksheet.html plant-life-cycle-worksheet.html

WE HAVE FREE WORKSHEETS FOR KIDS

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A little work now really does bring a big reward next spring. Happy gardening, Charlotte Vegetable Gardening Online

www.vegetable-gardening-online.com

Growing Knowledge — Growing Your Garden since 2009

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