I have had rodent problems over the years as well. Trail camera ID'ed the actors as chipmunks and voles. Almost impossible to eliminate them so I pick as soon as the fruits start to ripen/turn red. The little creatures don't seem to like the green tomatoes and they leave them alone
2026 Gardening Growing Thread
- Thread starter Salmon123
- Start date
Yeah I picked the blush tomatoes this morning. I'm 99% sure it's rats, as I've seen 'em around. Ah, I guess like Lee Ving sang sardonically, "I love living in the City!"
Interesting reading for tomato growers...
Like most fruits, best ripened on the vine, unless the vermin get to them first of course.
Thanks for coming to my Tom talk.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Like most fruits, best ripened on the vine, unless the vermin get to them first of course.
Thanks for coming to my Tom talk.
Off-the-Vine Ripening of Tomato Fruit Causes Alteration in the Primary Metabolite Composition - PMC
The influence of postharvest fruit ripening in the composition of metabolites, transcripts and enzymes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is poorly understood. The goal of this work was to study the changes in the metabolite composition of the ...
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Here is an example of when the research confirms what we already knew. Vine ripened tomatoes taste different, most would say better.Interesting reading for tomato growers...
Like most fruits, best ripened on the vine, unless the vermin get to them first of course.
Thanks for coming to my Tom talk.
Off-the-Vine Ripening of Tomato Fruit Causes Alteration in the Primary Metabolite Composition - PMC
The influence of postharvest fruit ripening in the composition of metabolites, transcripts and enzymes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is poorly understood. The goal of this work was to study the changes in the metabolite composition of the ...
F*ckin rats!!
This mornings harvest. I need to grow more of these next year. So damn good.
SF
SF
All of a sudden, I too am swamped with ripening tomatoes. Because of a setback during the spring, I ended up with more Sungold tomato plants than I usually have. We absolutely love them with green salads, but I'm at the point of just having tomato salad without the lettuce, cucumbers, mushrooms, and other veggies.
I’ve been on a mozzarella, basil and balsamic vinegar tear myself when it comes to eating tomatoes.
SF
My San Marzano tomatoes are finally turning color. I should have a good harvest when the do. Boy, they take a long time. Supposed to be good for sauce.
They are good for sauce, being smaller it takes a lot of them though.
I'd roast the tomatoes on the grill with a bunch of garlic and a slice or two of onion at a low temp till the Tom's are squishy and the garlic is golden, low temp, don't burn the garlic.
Then peel the skin off and cut out the core, best done after cooling a bit.
Then put it all in a pan, add olive oil and cook it down a bit till thickened. Transfer to a blender and pureee, then back into the pan where you add fresh basil and cook it on low for a few minutes till basil wilts and things look right.
This is how I made sauce with ours.
It is very good, silky sauce with a ton of flavor.
Double batch
I'd roast the tomatoes on the grill with a bunch of garlic and a slice or two of onion at a low temp till the Tom's are squishy and the garlic is golden, low temp, don't burn the garlic.
Then peel the skin off and cut out the core, best done after cooling a bit.
Then put it all in a pan, add olive oil and cook it down a bit till thickened. Transfer to a blender and pureee, then back into the pan where you add fresh basil and cook it on low for a few minutes till basil wilts and things look right.
This is how I made sauce with ours.
It is very good, silky sauce with a ton of flavor.
Double batch
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Throw 2 quarts of cherry tomatoes, some thyme, 4 smashed garlic cloves, a diced shallot, 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, some olive oil, and S&P into an oven safe container and roast at 375 for about 75 minutes uncovered. You'll get a delicious tomato jam you can use as a condiments, pasta sauce, topping for toasts, or eat by the spoonful. I had it with beans, farro, and fish the other night, so freaking good
I'm going to do this with ours!
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Kind of garden related. I’ve been harvesting multiple spiderwebs with my face each morning while attending to my plants.
SF
SF
will be trying this asap. i have a sungold overflow situation here.
Not exactly veggies and such but found a really cool hollow trunk driftwood piece. This wood is burled-up in a way that sanding the burl into stunning probably wouldn't work. So I was wondering what to do with it, washed it out a few times with fresh water over a few months to get the salt out and couldn't think of how to turn it into something other than rotting yard wood that happens to look cool that the garden slowly takes over.
... or I could take that fate a different way and turn it into a planter.
I stuffed some soil throughout and planted some ferns, though propping it up and getting it inside was the next problem. Legs looked weird. There wasn't much thickness to the trunk to work with. A cantilever looked goofy. Maybe I could hang it?
In my garage, there's saved odd pieces and orphan wood, most of it will never amount to much and none of it could be rigged into something cool-looking to serve as the base and arm for a hanging planter. So I just let it be for a while and kept an eye out for possible ways to build a hanging frame.
Then the fates came through.
My old neighbors, The Prof and the Prof's wife, went into assisted living about a year ago and the kids are finally prepping for selling the place. They started putting out free stuff including a beat-up old rose-backed dining chair. These were probably ubiquitous for brown wood furniture in the 60's and 70's. This wasn't a set, just the one tired chair. Seemed to me with some saw discipline and brown stain removed and some of the neighbor's old free hemp rope I could get a hanging planter rigged from the inverted chair base. Maybe more of a hanging cradle? So that's what I did, though added the rose detail back in, painted the flower and lacquered the wood and she's up and hanging.
It's sort of a bummer these guys moved out. The Prof was a full on climber and backcountry skier. And all of his gear was stuff you might see from the 60's or 70's. A time capsule of a man's gear on that front yard yesterday. He climbed all kinds of peaks, all kinds of adventure stories. He coiled his hemp rope like a climber might and I took all of that.
(The neighbor's place goes up for sale Friday, it's is a block from Green Lake and yards from an easy Kayak launch)
... or I could take that fate a different way and turn it into a planter.
I stuffed some soil throughout and planted some ferns, though propping it up and getting it inside was the next problem. Legs looked weird. There wasn't much thickness to the trunk to work with. A cantilever looked goofy. Maybe I could hang it?
In my garage, there's saved odd pieces and orphan wood, most of it will never amount to much and none of it could be rigged into something cool-looking to serve as the base and arm for a hanging planter. So I just let it be for a while and kept an eye out for possible ways to build a hanging frame.
Then the fates came through.
My old neighbors, The Prof and the Prof's wife, went into assisted living about a year ago and the kids are finally prepping for selling the place. They started putting out free stuff including a beat-up old rose-backed dining chair. These were probably ubiquitous for brown wood furniture in the 60's and 70's. This wasn't a set, just the one tired chair. Seemed to me with some saw discipline and brown stain removed and some of the neighbor's old free hemp rope I could get a hanging planter rigged from the inverted chair base. Maybe more of a hanging cradle? So that's what I did, though added the rose detail back in, painted the flower and lacquered the wood and she's up and hanging.
It's sort of a bummer these guys moved out. The Prof was a full on climber and backcountry skier. And all of his gear was stuff you might see from the 60's or 70's. A time capsule of a man's gear on that front yard yesterday. He climbed all kinds of peaks, all kinds of adventure stories. He coiled his hemp rope like a climber might and I took all of that.
(The neighbor's place goes up for sale Friday, it's is a block from Green Lake and yards from an easy Kayak launch)
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That looks really cool!
Some more neighbor handoffs from today’s harvest.
SF
SF
