Ol Jack Frost

Tonight's forecast predicts our first freeze.  Will it happen?  I don't know.  We're around trees and cloud cover may prohibit the temps from dipping colder than 33.  Trouble is, sometimes we like to push the zone and plant things late just to see if we squeeze additional time out of the growing season.  For instance, we have been picking buckets and buckets of green beans lately.  Our peppers and eggplants are producing great quantities.  

And our tomatoes.  They look fantastic.  Fall tomatoes are always prettier and healthier than the spring tomatoes around here.  There's no bugs or worms to compete.  The issue you run into is an early freeze.  In 2017, we had a HUGE crop of beautiful tomatoes.  All were still green.  Then an early freeze came and decimated the crop.

I picked every single tomato and researched what we could do with them.  I came up with this:

Pomodori Verdi is a green tomato pasta sauce made with: Green tomatoes, onions, bay leaves, garlic, salt, pepper, oregano and lemon juice.  We canned a bunch of the stuff.  It still sits in our pantry.

The other day we were rotating the stock in our pantry and Tricia made a Cream of Tomato Soup with the pomodori verdi.  You know what?  Pretty doggone good!  (You gotta get past the green color of the soup, though.)

Speaking of Green Tomatoes.  Let's walk out and look at the crop.  The plants look great.  They are about 5 feet tall and still growing.  I have them trellised with the Florida Weave Trellising system.  They are happy plants.

The vines are loaded with blooms AND tomatoes.  Still a ways from harvest, but looking good and coming on strong.  In a few short weeks some of these bad boys would be ready.

But with the freeze coming,  I don't know if they'll make it to maturity.  I got a blue tarp out and threw it over the 13 plants we have.  Maybe it'll work.  Maybe it won't.

But at least we know if Ol Jack Frost comes, we can still make green tomato sauce.