Tomato harvest

There was some frost last week and the tomatoes are getting black patches. I picked the whole lot of them last night.

Some of them are ripening and will finish off on the windowsill. The rest will be made into chutney. I have a huge stock pot that I use for this. The jars and lids are collected in the shed.

Growing tomatoes outdoors in Ireland is always a balancing act between getting the plants outside as early as possible to let them develop while at the same time avoiding any late frosts - certain death for young tomato plants. If the frost gets the plants there is no time to germinate fresh seeds, so you are not growing any tomatoes that year. If you wait too long before putting the plants outside to be sure of missing the late frosts, you are unlikely to get the fruit ripened before the autumn frosts set in. 

Still the chutney is gorgeous and we are just using up our last jar from last year, so the timing is perfect.