Every week there’s a few more of the tomatoes ripening in the bag. When I see they’re almost ripe, I set them on the window sill so I can keep an eye on them.
Putting an apple in the bag with the tomatoes trick does work, but you need to keep checking them every couple days.
I can’t get over how pretty they are. I’ve only a few more November tomatoes left. It certainly has been fun having these volunteer tomatoes this late in the season.
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We ate the ripest four of the tomatoes. 
They tasted like sun ripened tomatoes.
Since these 4 were mostly ripe before I bagged them, I figure
being outdoors was mostly responsible for the taste. 
Some more of the tomatoes are mostly ripened now too.
I hope they taste as well as the first four.
The 12th of Nov, my husband looked under the cheesecloth covering the tomato vine and discovered several other tomatoes on the now dying vine. He picked them and brought them in. I’ve bagged them with an apple. Now I wait for them to ripen too.
I suppose this is the end of the gardening season for me.
It was fun tending to the volunteer tomato vine.
Wishing you all a pleasant week of sunshine & warm smiles.
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When the weather guy announced a high chance of a frost in the forecast, my husband harvested our tomatoes. He left a little of the vine on them as suggested by SalPal on my post November Tomatoes.
My husband left the main plant in tact and re-covered it with cheesecloth because it still has blooms and it may or may not die with this frost.
From many years of experience, my brother knows oodles about tomatoes: growing, propagating and ripening. He told me that one of the best ways to ripen tomatoes is in a paper bag or cardboard box with either a banana or apple in with them. The ethylene gas produced by an apple or banana helps the tomatoes ripen better. We agreed that a banana seemed like a possibly messy idea, so an apple seemed the best option.
The bag or box needs to be closed and put in a cool dark place and checked every day, if your tomatoes are at different levels of ripening like mine are.
We haven’t tried one yet. You can’t tell it from the photos, but the reddest ones are still bit under-ripe.
Regardless of the taste, it’s been really enjoyable watching the volunteer plant grow and produce in November. It’s been a rare treat and that in itself is worth the attention and care we’ve given it.
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Looking Good!
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With the first cold night, I covered my volunteer Cherry Tomato vine with cheese cloth. Until Tuesday evening, I left the cheesecloth on the tomato vine 24/7. I checked the tomatoes and was delighted to see they’re turning. It won’t be long until we have some fresh tomatoes in November.
I’m going to leave the cheese cloth half-off of the vine until the weather turns cold again.
I figured it up and this is the second year on the volunteer tomatoes in that small bed, so it’s a wonder that the vine grew healthy at all. I hope the tomatoes have a good taste to them.
I am beyond tickled about these November tomatoes.
What a rare treat they are.
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Late in the gardening season, I noticed one lone little volunteer tomato plant growing in amongst my tiger lilies. I decided to let it grow. It’s a tall leggy vine and only started branching out when it grew as tall as the lilies. It had a few blooms, but never developed tomatoes until a couple weeks ago. Now it has about a dozen cherry tomatoes on it.
I figured the vine would die with the nights of cool weather, but so far it hasn’t.
If our first hard frost holds off until late in the month, it’s possible we’ll get a few fresh cherry tomatoes. They would be a mighty tasty treat.
I haven’t progressed very much on my cross stitch. All the changing of the many colors of threads on the needle has slowed me down and made cross stitching not-so-enjoyable.
I thought about how to make my needlecraft more enjoyable and go smoother with less needle threading work..
and then it came to me, have several colors threaded on other needles ready for the color changes.
Cool idea, but I didn’t have any extra embroidery needles so I had to wait until I went shopping to buy some.
I bought a 6 pack of embroidery needles. The low price was a nice surprise.
I haven’t had a chance to load my new needles up and work on my cross stitch. I plan to soon.
I’m happy that I might actually finish my cross stitch before the holidays and have it ready to display with my other decor.
I’ve done a small bit of polymer clay sculpting recently. I sculpted 3 cherries of 2 different varieties. They turned out really pretty.
Did you have any late season gardening surprises?
Have you been doing any crafting for the holidays?
Have a great day!
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Joys Of Creating 