Tomatoes can be incredibly rewarding to grow, producing an abundant harvest throughout the warm season and into the fall. Since these plants do not overwinter, at the end of the season, you may be unsure how to deal with the leftover tomatoes and the spent tomato plants. Here we provide a step-by-step guide to shutting down your tomato growing operations before the first frost.
Step One: Harvest All Remaining Tomatoes
Once temperatures fall below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s time to head out to the garden and harvest the rest of your tomatoes. Pick off all red ones, but don’t hesitate harvest the lighter green ones! Dispose of the small, dark green tomatoes as they will not ripen enough for use off the vine. You can put your light green tomatoes into a brown paper bag and set them on your counter at room temperature. These tomatoes will ripen over time.
Step Two: Remove Plants and Clear Trellises
Take your clippers and lop off your tomato plant to the base. Carefully remove tomato plants from structures like trellises, cages and stakes. We recommend pulling the whole plant out of the garden, roots and all, to leave a clean space for your next planting.
Once you have your pile of tomato plant debris, it’s time to dispose of everything. In Fairfax county, we cannot burn the plants, so we recommend throwing them into the trash. We do not recommend adding old tomato plants to your compost pile as any diseases, fungus or blight on your plant could spread to anything you use your compost on.
Step Three: Clean Trellises and Equipment
When all the plants are gone and thrown away, we recommend cleaning your trellises, cages and stakes, eliminating any remaining debris. This will help deter disease and prepare your structures for planting cool season climbers like sugar snap peas and snow peas.
Step 4: Prepare Garden Beds for New Veggies
If you planted tomatoes into the garden, you may want to plant something else in its place during the cool season. We recommend plants like radishes, spinach and lettuce. Add a layer of Bumper Crop or another veggie fertilizer, work it into the soil and then plant new cool season vegetables into the garden.
Step 5: Cooking with Tomatoes
Head back into the kitchen and get to work using up your tomatoes. Delicious options include fried green tomatoes, relish, homemade ketchup and pickled tomatoes. There are plenty of choices for those partially ripened tomatoes too!
