So many people were nice enough to offer me advice on how best to ripen my tomatoes this late in the season--and I am happy to report that a few of them are now starting to turn red out on the vine!The end of last week was downright cold, but the temps this week have rebounded and I'm glad that I left them in the ground for a while longer. Tonight, I decided to race outside before the sun set to take a few pictures...
... when all of a sudden, a flash of dark pink caught my eye. I went over to investigate, and discovered a cluster of ripening raspberries!These are from a 'Canby Red' that I purchased on clearance in July and finally got in the ground in August. Needless to say, I didn't expect to see any fruit on it until next year. I don't know how many of these will actually ripen, but it looks like I am going to enjoy at least one homegrown raspberry yet this year. Yum.
15 comments:
Those tomatoes are pretty amazing, aren't they? I have about 30 of them sitting on my kitchen counter right now just from the past three days! Of course, the warm October air has helped. But the plants truly WANT to produce.
I am glad you hung in there. The tomatoes may not TASTE as sweet but they are sweet for the fact that you grew them instead of buying them from California--or Chile.
--Robin (Bumblebee)
Don't you just love those end of the season 'gifts' from the garden?
A tomato for supper and a raspberry for dessert. What could be better? Especially in mid-October!
We had raspberries for a while, but they took a lot of space and we eventually replaced them. I think it's amazing that you are getting berries.
I've responded to your comment on the "eco-grass" with a link to my source for the seed. (If you end up wanting to purchase seed from them, I recommend doing it during the winter when they have fewer orders. If you wait until "prime time" they tend to get overwhelmed with orders.)
Congrats on the tomatoes and raspberries! Especially the raspberries---I only got one little berry off of mine this year. I'll have to look for 'Canby Red'---those berries look so plump and juicy!
Robin, that's so true about them tasting sweet. Since they're paste tomatoes they're destined for the freezer/cans anyway, and I have enough homegrown garlic and herbs that I think I'll still be able to kick the heck out of a jar of Prego.
Connie, "gifts" is just the right word!
Carol, not much could be better, I agree. :)
Karen, they do take up a bunch of space, I know. My grandma's patch got so big that you couldn't even walk through it anymore and she cut all of hers down then.
I'm growing these in the strip between my driveway and the neighbor's chainlink fence... the driveway should control growth one way, I'll watch growth in two other directions, and I figure that since my neighbors didn't worry about whether their strawberries would invade my garden I'm not going to worry about my raspberries invading theirs. We'll just share fruit! lol.
Colleen, the fruit & veggie guy at "my" garden center recommended that one as a good fall-bearing variety. I'll let you know--maybe as early as tomorrow--how they taste. :)
Now that is one big raspberry, is it an ever-bearing variety? Nice looking tomato.
Tomatoes and raspberries...wow! I'm salivating...
I love raspberries! We used to pick them -- and blackberries -- on our farm each year. We'd walk into the thickets, fill up our little buckets with the fruit and arrive home with nearly empty containers. :-) They were delicious.
I hope you get many more raspberries in the years to come.
YUM! Raspberries! I would SO love to grow them. We used to have some bushes ages and ages ago (before kids), but we didn't know how to take care of them and they got out of hand, so Romie says, "No more!" We'll see . . . ;-)
Hey Kim, did you feel the earthquake there this morning? The news said it was 2.something and strong enough to feel like a large truck rumbling by. I've only ever felt one here and it was when Kara was two years old. That one was centered near Cincy. Very weird!
It is so cool that you have raspberries ripening at this time of year. Way to go! I'm glad to hear that the tomatoes are ripening too!
Give Coco a pat for me!
I didn't know raspberries, my favorite berry, would grow so quickly. You've inspired me to try some next year. I'm surprised you still have tomatoes. We ripped out our container grown sweet one hundred several weeks ago because the vines were pretty ratty. The blue background looks good but why the change from black?
iowa gardening woman, I admit that I get confused between "everbearing" and "fall-bearing"... is it the same thing? If so, then yes, because 'Canby' is a fall-bearing type. It's also thornless, which I didn't realize when buying it.
By the way, I just ate that berry I showed in the picture this morning, and it was a lot sweeter than I had expected. :)
wildlife gardener, me too! I'm hoping that I get some more raspberries before the first frost--we'll see.
dawn, your comment had me grinning. That's exactly how "picking raspberries at Grandma's house" used to be for me! (And I have blackberries, too, YUM.)
Kylee, google "Everbearing raspberries" and one of the first articles that comes up is one from Tauton publications that is an excellent one. It talks about pruning to keep them in check, etc. I have it bookmarked!
I didn't feel the earthquake, but quite honestly I often sleep like the dead... so something that felt like a truck rumbling by wouldn't have registered with me at all. :)
Kate, thanks! And Coco says "Boof!" too. (That translates to "Thanks," I'm sure. lol.) I just noticed that I don't have you on my blogroll anymore for some reason. I'll have to rectify that, sorry.
Ki, my Sweet 100s and another cherry type look... well, let's just say "appropriately Halloween-esque" right now, too! These just haven't produced yet, and I'm sure that's why they look so good, comparatively.
I was just playing with the background color... thinking that there is no true black in nature, etc. But I think I do like black better on my blog... the blue looks dark enough here, but on my home computer it's too blue!
Good luck with these fruits, Kim! I bet we all have a bit more warmish weather here in the midwest...our forecast is above freezing for at least another week. I've gotten a couple bonus raspberries, too...mine are everbearing types for sure.
What a nice tease for all the raspberries you'll be sure to have next spring! I'm so glad your tomatoes ripened nicely. I picked all mine at the first sign of frost and they ripened on the kitchen countertop. But then I only started with about six of them!
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