Frost Scare

For the past few weeks, because fall was knocking on my door, I've made a habit of pulling tomatoes before they're ripe. I have a zillion green tomatoes on the plants. I figured if I took the ones that can easily ripen on my windowsill, my plants can focus their energy on the green ones, right?

Well, then days and nights started cooling and I got a little pushy. Any tomato who made even the slightest comment about their willingness to leave the plant got snatched up. It's worked out OK, even though I can hear some of them whispering about me from the windowsill:  "Can you believe she did it? I was just trying to be nice...Did you see what she did to so-and-so?"

All I can say is that someone had to make the tough decision.

And then we got it...the dreaded frost warning.  I pulled every last 'mater that had even the faintest blush on it.

Green ones plucked by Lovie.

But then what? What the eff do I do about 200 really green tomatoes left after that?
Fried green tomatoes. OK, that takes care of 3...
Chutney? Well, I've never made it or eaten it, so I was not sure about that. And I already have a ton of tomatoes, a bag of apples and 2 dozen pears to deal with.

My beds are pretty big, so I didn't have any reasonable way to cover them.

Hubs and I took a walk, hoping to find my neighbor and ask for her Master Gardner advice, but she was nowhere to be found.

I was on my own.

I didn't want to waste food, but I decided to take my chances. I figured either they would live to see another day and have a chance to fulfill their destiny or...not.

The Red Stripe plant took a hit.

But the rest of the team held up pretty well. I just need a little more time for these guys.

I think I'll still end up with a lot of green tomatoes, but I'll try to get a plan together.