Which veggies will survive?

Supposed to reach 28° here tonight and I've got tons of green tomatoes still on the vines – should I be outside picking them off and try to ripen indoors? I heard if there are no signs of color on the vine, they won't turn after they're picked. But if I don't pick them, will they survive overnight?
I also have tons of hot peppers going strong...leave 'em or pick 'em?
What about bell peppers?

Please help!
Ping

I also have a ton of flowers in containers and I would ask what to do with them but to be honest, I have no clue what some of them are...lol!

Both your tomatoes and peppers are goners if it hits below 31-32 degrees, Ping. In fact, those plants stopped growing once it got below 50 degrees nightime temps. If I were you, I'd harvest them all and hope for the best, because they're sure goners if you leave them on the vine/plant @28 degrees. I've read numerous accounts of successfully ripening tomatoes in brown paper bags, but never tried it myself...

Thanks for giving me the heads up, StonoRiver...I really do appreciate it.
I went ahead and starting picking them, just in case...about 1/3 done.
Thanks again!
Ping

Howdy Ping! Long time, no see!

Glad you picked your maters and peppers. The ones (tomatoes) that don't seem to ripen are great for frying or for green tomato chutney. The peppers can be easily frozen for later use in stews, soups, etc. Cut them up, no need to blanch, and bag them and throw them in the freezer. If you have some big enough for stuffed peppers then make your stuffings, blanch your peppers, stuff them then freeze them...makes for an easy to make meal this winter!

As for ripening the tomatoes, I prefer to ripen them in a drawer (clean out your socks and put them elsewhere!). Lay down some newspaper, put in your tomatoes, then cover with more paper. That way sure makes it easy to just lift the paper and see if any are rotting. By the way, usually the tomatoes that show a bit of rose color on the blossom end will be best for ripening this way (and are also the best for fried green maters!) but I do it with any green tomato and hope for the best!

Hope you have your cabbage, broc, collards, etc growing well by now!

Shoe

Howdy Shoe!
Good to see you too! And as usual...thanks for all of the useful information! I got done picking the tomatoes around 3am and it was about 36°....whew. Nothing like the adrenaline rush of waiting to the very last minute, lol.
I think I'll work on some green tomato chutney today...

As for my cabbage, broc, collards, etc...unfortunately never got to start any. Can anything be started now or is it too late? Is there anything I should be planting now to be ready for next season?

It was a crazy, at wit's end, end of summer for me...I'll have to mail you and tell you all about it. I hope your summer went well and that you were very prosperous for the year. The year? Oh my....where in the world did it go? You were just telling me how to lay out my garden....lol! And I'm definately not waiting until January to start my lasagna garden...in fact, starting now and plan on doubling the garden to about 40x70. I also doubled my strawberry patch.
Talk soon...I need about another hour of sleep!!
Ping

I just thought of one more thing before I take in my nap....if tomatoes and peppers both can be frozen...what's the difference whether they're on the vine or in my freezer?
Hmmmmmmmmm.............

if tomatoes and peppers both can be frozen...what's the difference whether they're on the vine or in my freezer?
No difference for tomatoes anyway, I just wash my tomatoes, let them dry and toss them into a freezer bag and freeze. When I want to use them for cooking, I put them into some hot water, then remove the skins, crush them and toss into whatever needs tomatoes!

I would only do as shoe recommends for the peppers though as the seeds would b a problem if you didn't remove them.

Pinger...if a local garden center still has any plants left you could try some cabbage and collard plants and although they'll grow slowly you should still get a harvest from them. I'm sure they are still offering onion sets so there's no doubt you can plant those now, and also garlic can go in. (Grocery store garlic is often fairly inexpensive right now and will do just fine!)

And ditto what dragonfly says...you can freeze the tomatoes whole and the skin easily peels off when thawed out. A friend of mine throws her tomatoes (whole) into a blender/food processor and blends them skin and all, then either freezes or cans it, making it into sauce when ever she wants to during the Winter when she has more time.

Happy Gardening, Folks!
Shoe

Pinger I would love to have that tomato chutney recipe.

It still has not frosted at my house.

Lavina

Hi...
I remember having tomatoes into December in upstate NY when I was a kid - we had them in boxes covered with paper and checked them daily (one of my jobs). I had tomatoes on the vine here until December of last year, actually ripening and edible, but this year, heavy rain and early cold (not freezing) weather knocked them out. Those that were almost ripe, exploded, and the rest stop growing.

Freezing tomatoes is a God send during the busiest harvesting days. And I have been know to plant a few of the longer bearing varieties and store them in newspaper. Nothing like having the ladies over during Jan and offering ripe tomatoes stuffed with homemade chicken salad. I ought to blush, I'm such a show off............LOL but they know how I am.......

Good, logical question, Ping! I'm no expert, but I suspect the difference is that once frozen on the vine/plant and left there, the fruit is subject to rewarming in the following balmy days (which always happen!), and decay begins instantly once the temps get over freezing. In the freezer, temps NEVER get over 32 degrees (rarely over 0 degrees), so the natural bacteria which cause the decay never get a chance to start doing their thing. Hence they stay status quo from harvest time. Just a guess...

But never can tomatoes from frozen vines....

Wow...that was a long nap! Whew!
Let's see if I can 'ketchup' with all this new information....

Shoe~ gonna pass on the collards and cabbage, not a fan of either and would rather put my efforts elsewhere (but thanks, kiddo!) As far as the onions go...what's an onion 'set'? I have a basket of onions under my kitchen table and two of them has these tall green stems coming up out of them (onion is still fine, not rotten)...can I plant that and will it grow?
Garlic~YUM! Just plant a clove and let it do it's thing or is there something special I have to do? Somewhere I read that you should plant your garlic bed away from your regular garden and away from something else but I forgot what that was....
How much garlic will grow from one clove?

LavinaMae~ Recipe will be in your mailbox by end of day! :)

StonoRiver~Your explanation makes total sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain!

4paws~I'm assuming your statement, 'But never can tomatoes from frozen vines' is because of what StonoRiver said? Or something else?

Thanks for all of the input/advice/info!
Ping

Ping, an onion "set" is a small onion that resembles a bulb; best size is usually about the size of a marble or a tad bit bigger. Onions are planted either from seed, set, or plant.

As for your sprouted onion you can plant it and harvest it for its greens but if the onion (bulb) itself is full size then it'll more'n likely just rot in the ground. (And there ain't much things that smell worse than rotten onions!)

A garlic clove will produce a garlic bulb/head. As for planting it away from the rest of your garden that is a choice you can make if you like. I plant mine in rows right in the garden wherever I have space. As for isolating them you might be thinking of how some folks (and books) believe that planting alliums hear peas has a detrimental effect. (As for me, I've done that for years, even on purpose, and have not witnessed any negative effects on either the alliums or peas.

Happy Growing!
Shoe

So, would it be ok to plant garlic in deck boxes right now? Freezes don't bother them?

If the boxes are really small and you have a very hard freeze there is a chance (however slight) that the garlic would freeze and then rot. However, I overwinter many plants in pots as small as quart and gallon size and when we have a hard cold snap come on I make sure the soil in those pots are moist as that will really help keep the plants roots from freezing. (Dry soil in pots and planter boxes more easily freeze thereby killing the roots of those plants that are in the boxes.)

Garlic that is in the ground can easily handle low Winter temps. SCNewbie, how big are you planter boxes? I bet they are big enough to allow you to grow garlic in them but would like to hear from you to be sure.

Shoe

I'm with you on this one, Shoe. I've planted both garlic and onions in the garden next to whatever happened to rotate next to them, and never noticed any detrimental effects. In some 50 odd years! Could this be one of those "Suburban Myths"??

Hehehe...yes, Stono...and love the "Suburban myths"! Thanks!

As you can see below, a fine crop of onions and peas, happily coexisting! (And I happily harvested them! Yay!)

Shoe

My deck boxes might not be big enough - they're about 6" deep, 5" wide. I want to grow my herb garden there in the summer. But... I have a couple of feet on the end of the strawberry bed I just did. I could plop the garlic in there for the winter, couldn't I?

Watering the plants helps to keep the roots from freezing? I thought the exact opposite; I was afraid to water my plants on the days I knew it was going to freeze that night. But, see, this is my first winter growing anything down here, so I'm feeling my way thru & learning a TON here! :)) Thanks for the info!

SCNewbie, Yep, I used to think that, too, about watering plants in cold weather. I was under the impression the plants would take up water then it would freeze/expand in their cells and pop them. However in times of extreme cold apparently the plants don't tend to take up much water.

And yes, you can put your garlic near your strawberry bed and they should do just fine. Also, if it is not a big burden, you could put the garlic in your planters and if the temps drop to below 20 degrees for an extended period you can always bring your plants into the garage or some more protected area during that time.

Have fun!
Shoe

Wow, they're good to 20 degrees?? Thank you so much for all this info!!! :)

In the ground they are good at much lower temps (air temps). In pots there is a bigger chance of the whole pot/soil/roots freezing solid if held at 20 for extended periods. I just use 20 as a guide; if it is only down to 20 for an hour in the early morning hours I think they'd be fine; if it was 20 degrees for a few hours then that is long enough for the bulbs to freeze.

Shoe

Pretty garden Shoe! Think your differentiation between AIR temp and GROUND temp is spot on! The air temp here in Charleston (SC), can get down in the low teens occasionaly, but the lowest ground temp I''ve seen in the past 20 years was 54 degrees (Yeah, I do keep a thermometer in the ground to monitor soil temps...). I think that's why we can grow so many "tropicals" here in Charleston...the air temps kill off the top growth in the winter, but that warm Mother Earth protects the roots, so they grow again in spring. Don't always blossom, but grow like weeds.! Just another guess... but I've got volunteer Bougainvillea popping up all over around my greenhouse from a pruning job that I was a little lazy about removing the trimmings...