Ripening Tomatoes Indoors: It's Easy

My garden was a little delayed in harvesting thanks to a little thing called flooding in Colorado this year. It water-logged most of my plants right at prime harvest time.

So after things dried up, I cleaned up the fruits that were no good, and decided to let the remaining tomatoes in particular hang out for a bit in the garden.

When I could finally hold out no longer, I took the tomatoes - mostly my San Marzanos - off the plant, placed them in a box in the hopes that they would ripen in my kitchen. I had nothing to lose really.

Inspired By ... Midsummer Planting

I have a gap in my garden right now, and I really want to fill it. Being relatively new to gardening, I wasn't sure what veggies I could plant midsummer for harvest in the fall.

I found this handy chart from the University of Minnesota Extension. The bottom line: I already knew I could do lettuce and kale and cabbage.

I don't have a ton of space, but enough that I can try a few new veggies out for some fresh fall treats, and add to my garlic patch (a small area of my garden) for garlic harvest next year.

I'm thinking I'll try out cauliflower and beets, both of which can handle a little frost in addition to planting more kale and lettuce under my cucumber trellis. (Only a few of my previous lettuce seeds actually are resulting in actual seedlings.)