I picked 3 big bowls of tomatoes, most of them are ripe but maybe as much as a quarter of them that would be better if they had a few more days, total weight is well over 20 pounds. If we don't get a frost tonight, there are still enough green tomatoes for another good picking in a week to 10 days and possibly another a week or two later if the weather holds up. (There have been years when we were still picking tomatoes off the vines in early November.)

This should give me enough tomatoes for another 6-7 quarts of tomato juice, which would put me well over last year's yield.

I also picked at least 6 pounds of eggplant, taking everything larger than my little finger. A lot of the white ones had turned yellow, but even a lot of the smaller ones are yellow so I don't think it's just a question of being too ripe, not sure what causes them to go yellow.

That'll give me another research project for the winter, I guess. My major research project will be to delve into categorizing layers of bread crust as part of my 'bread shapes = bread flavor' project, possibly with the aid of a microscope. And hopefully I'll even get back into the rye project.

We did not get a frost in our garden last night, though some friends who live only a few miles away did lose several types of plants, including basil.

Looks like it could be two weeks before there's another cold wave deep enough to present a freeze warning.

The hydroponics teacher at UNL was harvesting some of his test crops, most of which usually go to the food bank. But he did bring some butter crunch lettuce over along with what I call frisee (see below), but my wife isn't sure that's what it is. (I might add it to the list of lettuces I grow in the Aerogarden, I'm also thinking of trying some dwarf pea pods.)

She also brought a couple of tomatoes, the one below is nearly a pound.

Of the tomatoes I've grown regularly, First Lady (sometimes sold as First Lady II) is still my favorite. There's a First Ladies that isn't the same tomato, but seems similar. I had both this year, neither did especially well, though I think that was just how the season played out. I will probably do both again next year, if I can find First Lady seed, usually Reimer Seeds has it.

My Fourth of July plants were, once again, the most prolific tomatoes I had, but they only get about the size of ping pong balls or smaller. They make good tomato juice, though.

Having a tomato mill helps a lot, I can process 20 pounds of tomatoes in 60-90 minutes, including setup and cleanup. I do blanche them in boiling water for several minutes, that's supposed to help keep the juice from separating by deactivating an enzyme, but it doesn't always work.

For large tomatoes, I like Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste, both are determinates and are late ripeners and tend to ripen at the same time.

I've given up on Mortgage Lifter and Brandywine, they seem to shut down blooms faster in hot weather and crack a lot. My wife still likes Rutgers, but they weren't that productive this year, and the Celebrity were kind of a mixed bag.

We're now showing a projected low of 25 Monday night. Brrrr!

I've got a few tomatoes ripening, not sure I'll get enough by Monday to make juice, though.

The lows for the next 4 days here are:

Saturday 43
Sunday 29
Monday 19
Tuesday 20

I think we'll get our killer frost soon.

I've been known to pull up the plants in their cages and stick them in the garage, if there was space (which there usually isn't, garages are junk magnets.) I've also pulled all the green fruit and spread it out in boxes in the garage to ripen. We had tomatoes on Christmas once that way. But they're nowhere as flavorful as sun-ripened ones, and possibly not even as good as the ones in the stores these days, so I haven't been doing it lately and don't plan to do it this year.

They work for chili, though, and if enough of them ripened at the same time they'd probably make OK tomato juice, but usually they ripen over several weeks, not enough at any one time to process.