Fall Tomato Experiment, Harvest Before The Freeze

Jacey Bowers:

Hey guys, this is Jacey Bowers. Today we’re at Wabash. I’m just going to be briefly discussing some fall tomatoes. This was my first year that I really put a good amount of effort into trying fall tomatoes. My neighbor, they’ve been farmers for over 100 years. He told me that he felt that tomatoes didn’t taste the same as they do in the spring because of the heat. And I’ve experimented with a few. So I have Arkansas’s Traveler. I have Viva Italia, Rio Grande. We chose ones that would hopefully produce in time before the cold.

I will say this, I have good production, right? This Rio Grande has been incredibly productive and so has Santorini and so has the Lemon Boy. However, it seems that the issue isn’t so much with production, but when are they going to turn so that I can bring them inside and enjoy them? That being said, I do feel like perhaps next year I won’t grow as many tomatoes in the fall. The most production that I got from my tomatoes was a Roma that I had from the spring that came back to life in the fall and I got a really nice harvest from a few of those. I’ve gotten a nice harvest from a few Sun Golds as well, but if you’re going to do a larger tomato, don’t bother. It’s just going to be upsetting and it’s not going to blush in time, get that plush, and probably not ripen in time.

And I had that happen to a brandy wine and then it froze and it was devastating. I don’t know if I’ve still recovered. So if you’re going to do it, either do a few that you had from the spring that you’re going to keep and try to go into the fall or cherry tomatoes. That’s been my experience.