How to Grow Bunches of Tomatoes that Ripen Quickly

It's getting close to that time of year again it may even already be time for some. We always wait until Memorial Day to be confident that we are past the chance of frost date.  I thought I would bring this post forward early this Spring so those of you wanting to try this method will have plenty of time to gather supplies and prepare.

We were taught this by a farmer at our local CSA when we lived up north and have used it ever since.  Now instead of having big green bushes with a few tomatoes that turn red before frost IF we are lucky.  We now have skinny tall vines that are always loaded with bunches and bunches of fruit that can see the sun and turn red in plenty of time before frost.  In fact we have been known to have ripe tomatoes from July clear until Fall.

The cool thing too is that they take up less space.  Yep that's right you get more tomatoes and each plant takes up less space.  Just look in the picture just above (taken in 2011) the first bed has pole beans the next bed has tomatoes.  The bed is about 12x4 and there are almost 30 tomato plants growing in that space.

Okay I'm going to try to explain it as best I can so you can try it if you want.  I think you will be as pleased as we have been.

What you will need -

• Tomato plants, planted about 18 inches apart closer if you are really pressed for space.
• Next you will need some sort of clip we love these Tomato Clips
• Then you will want a bunch of twine some good strong stuff works best don't use string
• Something to be used as a frame to tie the twine on, you can get creative with this, we use rebar
• You will need something to tie the twine to and stake in the ground we use whatever we have available at the time, sticks, old tent stakes, pieces of wire hanger, gardening hose stakes or these Garden Stakes would work really well
  
  

I wish I had pictures of the whole process but mostly we have just been excited and taken pictures of all the fruit.  Just look at how you literally get bunches of tomatoes.

If you look closely at this picture you can kind of see how we train and clip the vine up the twine.  The pictures below show it even better.

What you do -

• As the vines get tall enough clip the main center stalk to the stem
• Also as they are growing pluck off all the suckers.  Sorry we don't have a picture of what a sucker looks like but I noticed that there are lots to choose from here so take a look if you don't know what I am talking about.
• As the plant grows just continue to clip it up to the twine and pluck off suckers as they come.
• Then as things start to cool off (usually early to mid-October maybe sooner) cut off the tops with new growth and pick off all little green ones and blossoms.  At this point you don't want the plant producing more fruit you want it to be ripening what's there.  This works really good to ripen them up before frost.

This is the very best way we have found to grow tomatoes especially if you live in zones 5 or colder where chances of late frost in the Spring and early frost in the Fall are common.  Also it seemed to be the only way to get plenty of yield when we only lived on less than a 10th of an acre and had very limited space.  Good luck with your gardens this year!

P.S. Here are a few more recent pictures of how we have been stringing up our tomatoes since we moved 5 years ago.

Roasted Roots

On Saturday, Ryan harvested most of the carrots and all of the beets and the few onions that where hiding. ;)

We had some nice looking beets even though it seemed like they were not doing all that well there are enough nice ones to make pickled beets with. But there were also quite a few little tiny beets that are not worth taking the time to try to peel when pickling them.

Ryan said, "I wonder what they would be like if we roasted them with some of the little potatoes that my Dad gave us from his garden." I told him that heck yes they would be good especially with some of those carrots and onions he had picked.

The best part is I knew that it would work to just wash them up and not worry about peeling them!

We also still have some chard hanging on in the garden so we cut up a bunch and I quickly sauteed it to go with dinner along with cooking some Quinoa. I have not cooked chard that way before but it was super quick and yummy so I added the recipe below too.

Just so you know picture quality for me always goes down in the winter because it is dark at dinner time.  Sorry I will try my best but artificial lighting just doesn't make as nice of pictures. ;) But it's still better than no picture I think!

Roasted Roots

3 pounds little round potatoes (we used gold ones but red or even russets would be good too)
1-2 pounds small beets (or you can just quarter some larger ones, same with the potatoes)
6-8 large carrots, cut into large chunks
2 large onions, cut into large chunks
2-4 Heaping Tablespoons coconut oil
Kosher Real Salt
Rosemary or herbs of choice (optional)

Place the veggies into two large bakers or cake pans or you could even use a cookie sheet. Blob the coconut oil on top of the veggies. Sprinkle the kosher salt (to taste) about 1/2 Tablespoon per pan. Sprinkle with as much herbs as you want we used just a nice little sprinkling of rosemary.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes as 400 degrees. Stir once or twice during cook time. Once the veggies started to turn golden brown I turned of the broiler and let them get a little crunchy on top just watch close so they don't burn I did 5-10 minutes.

Sauteed Chard

6-8 large leaves of chard, cut into thick ribbons stems removed
1-2 Tablespoons coconut oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
Lemon juice to taste
Real Salt and pepper to taste

In a large frying pan (I love my cast iron one) melt coconut oil and saute the garlic then add the chard stir quickly while it sizzles and a few splashes of lemon juice and cook until just wilted and dark green. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Serve!

Garden Update, August

We have grown a garden most every year since Ryan and I were married!  This is by far the best one we have had yet!  It's been lots of fun and giving us lots of food!  We love it!  Remember when I took you on this quick tour earlier in the season.  Check it out it's fun to compare how things have grown!  So amazing!

We have pole beans ready to harvest.....

and some of the cabbage looks ready too!!!  We have picked lots of peas and we keep getting more.  The secret to peas all season is a fairly cool shady spot!

Remember how small they were before!  

We strung the tomatoes up differently this year and broke off the excess leaves and branches.  We have been amazed at how many more tomatoes we have gotten and how much faster they have ripened just by stressing and training the plant a bit!  We have already picked a bucket full and another bucket full or more is about ripe.  LOVE IT!  We have never had Tomatoes ripe in August before, in fact a lot of times they weren't ripe before the frost.

Kale, Kale, Kale all season long!!!

All kinds of peppers are ripening.  Jalapenos, Bells, Anaheim, Cayenne and others!

We have loved having fresh basil to put in our recipes!  So good!

And we just love our blackberries!

Even though it tried to attack us! ;)

I just love having a herb garden.  Look how tall the evening primrose is, and it's about ready to bloom!

Apples......Mmmmm we can't wait for the apples!

Charly helped me harvest our beets!

We found the easiest thing to do was to put them all in a large tub tote thing. ;) And then wash them off.....



















.....then cut the greens off without cutting the beet.  They will keep better this way until I can freeze and/or pickle them.  I keep them in bags in the fridge until I'm ready they will keep for a while that way.



















The greens I also bag and put in the fridge after they are washed and dried they won't keep as long though so we will steam some to eat and use some in salads then freeze the rest for smoothies!

I am finding the best hint I can give you about gardening is to just do it and keep on trying.  The soil improves every year by tilling in the garden after harvest in the fall and adding organic material in the spring.  So much of gardening is just trial and error.  Practice, practice, practice!!  Just like anything the more you do it the better you will get at it.  Hardest thing with gardening is that when you mess up you usually have to wait until the next year to try it again.  I have decided to try keeping a garden journal to help me remember things from year to year, what worked and what didn't!  I went looking and found lots of them free to download online I think this one is my favorite Simple, not too many pages, yet has enough to be thorough!  Next year I'm for sure going to remember to start pepper seeds a good 2 weeks before everything else.  Who knew they took so long to germinate! ;)  Happy gardening hope you are all expecting lots of harvest!

 

Quick Tour of our Garden

Remember the post of our yard and garden plans,
and this post updating how our plants were coming?

Well we are having lots of fun and seeing that you really can grow A LOT of food in not much space.  We can't wait until everything is more mature.  But so far we are getting quite a bit of food!  These pictures were taken 2 weeks ago and with all the rain everything is growing FAST!  Including the weeds! ;)  We'll get out and get more pictures soon, but for now enjoy these!  We still have lots of work to do to make it just how we want but we are so excited how everything is coming along!

Most of the garden in the back yard, we want to do bark, or gravel paths to help with the weeds!

Our first handful of Strawberries.  There has been quite a few handfuls since these!

Beets!  I love the Beet greens for steaming and Green Smoothies. 
And the beets for Smoothies and Pickling!

 
Pole Beans we love this recipe and hope to have lots of beans to make it with!

 Zucchini!  Lots of plans for this, this, this and many other things!

Oh tomatoes can't get better than homegrown!
My favorite uses for them are here, here, here, and Me and Missy love to just eat them right off the vine!

Romaine, our favorite leafy green for salads!!!

The Peppers have had a slow start but they are much bigger now and I think they will do pretty well!

Just look how cute that little cabbage is!  I hope it gets nice and big and that we will have plenty to eat and make plenty of Sauerkraut which I have figured out how to make without any problems! ;)

Peas!  There are peas all over our vines and we are munching them down!

Kale!  It goes in Green Smoothies and we love these!

Our Blackberry Bush, is a beast we watch it grow and it tries to attack us on our porch!
Branches literally grow overnight!!  We have to put on our armor to train it back to where it goes, because of all the thorns!  But oh the berries are soooo good, like blackberry pie in each fresh picked bite!  These all get ate up but if there ever gets to be more than we can eat they will for sure be frozen for smoothies!

Yarrow!  Just one of my favorite medicinal herbs!  Great for bleeding, fevers, and bug spray!

I wouldn't be an herbalist if I didn't love this little guy!
Of course we have much more then we need! ;)
But if you can't beat 'em join 'em, right!
Wonderful liver tonic/cleanser, blood purifier and great source of minerals!!!

The Raspberries and Blueberries are younger then the Blackberries, but we have high hopes for them too!

Well there's a quick little tour of our garden.  That wasn't all of it and it's still a work in progress!  But I'll continue to share in our gardening journeys!  How is your garden coming?