hi guys welcome to another edition of melting in Georgia I cannot stand this heat it registered today 99 degrees and I had to be out in it in and out of my truck constantly so I just felt like I was melting uh you know when it's like this I love the gardening but there's a lot of times my brain says come on winter just come on winter but you know I'm not the only one that doesn't like it in the heat the tomatoes don't really like to ripen in the heat when you pick these extreme heats like this and these high temperatures the tomatoes really have a hard time ripening and you know there's a big question about ripening off the vine ripening on the vine and even sometimes when you go to the store and you buy a tomato that says it was ripen on the vine sometimes I wonder and you know then a lot of times just due to the length of miles that they have to travel from wherever they were picked from if they're ripening on the vine how much longer are they going to last and then sometimes you get in the store and you know if you go to buy tomato which I don't buy them in the store anymore because after you've had home grow you just cannot eat something that's sold in the store they pick them way too soon they pick them when they're still still green on the vine and you end up with having the tomato has this really hard white core on the inside and that's no fun and of course it has no flavor so I'm going to show you how to take care of that today I did this last year and it worked great I had more Tomatoes than I knew what to do with my freezers were full of tomatoes waiting to be candid yes I like to I like to freeze mine before I can them unless it's salsa salsa is the only recipe that I don't want to freeze fun Tomatoes before I can them but I'm going to bring you in and kind of show you what to look for you're going to them actually when they're green I've got a few that are still trying to turn this particular one right here has been in the orange state for well over a week so I'm just to the point that I don't think too many more are going to try to ripen because it's just way too hot but you can actually pick them green on the vine and they will ripen inside in front of a window just where it gets them doesn't have to be right in front of the window but just to where it can get a little bit of Sun and last year I had so many tomatoes that mine were ripening on the table away from the Sun and everything else but I'm going to bring you in and show you what to look for when you pick a green tomato if you're wanting it to ripen on you know inside and still be a nice really good tomato the only time I picked mine really green is when I want fried green tomatoes other than that there's I'm looking at the shoulders so let me bring you in and show you what I'm talking about when you see a tomato you get this leaf out of the way I just broke it but that's okay when you see a green tomato this is the blossom in that's the end where the blossom is the flower and the other end I might have to undo it here for just a minute okay and if you'll notice not on the blossom in but this is what you call the shoulder what you're looking for is a shoulder that is not dark green so when I compare if I were to compare this tomato with this one this one does not have any green left on the shoulder but these two have a little bit of green darker green left on the shoulder this one doesn't so I'm going to go ahead and take those Oh almost broke it this tomato plant is so heavy it's unbelievable but what I want to do is look for the ones that have the light green shoulder around the top of it that's when you know it's going to ripen so the rest of these three here are still a little bit darker if you can notice this one's really lighter around the top shoulder piece this one's still dark and that one's still dark so I don't want to take those off this one here I can get to it he's going to go right in and nip it see the top shoulder is really light so that one will that one will ripen inside these can come off that one's good and the more that I pick off of these the the plant is tends to get so stressed trying to for the tomatoes to try to ripen and it really the heat is stressing it out everything so want to take as much off of it as much pressure off the plant as I can let's go back here that one's good let me find you a couple that are really green that I just don't want to take off just yet if you'll notice these right here they are still pretty dark around the shoulder so I don't want to mess with those this one is a cherry tomato and it is called a sweet and neat it's not having trouble turning but it seems to be doing fine but now I say that and watch next week it'll have difficulties oh I love these and there are the coveted San marzanos the best sauce tomato in my opinion and a lot of chefs opinions and there are just a few of the San marzanos son they seem to be doing fine but they're shaded by the tomato plants in the front so and you know I keep it clear underneath so it can get the wind and a draft underneath then it's not too crowded but they're still struggling in this heat so I am - at the moment so let's get inside during the summer I will remove my cast iron from it all three shells in during the late winter early fall I mean early spring this becomes not one of my starting tables for us to our seeds at so it's kind of a multi-purpose but I've just got these shelf liners that I put on the shelves here and the reason I do this one is because I don't want the ridges where the wire is I don't want that coming through and marring up my Tomatoes but I do want to keep something down just in case an emergency comes up then I don't check on them for a day or two and they start to get soft on the bottom I don't have to worry about them you know staining or not staining but getting the tomato juice on the rack itself and these are a lot easier just to pick up and clean so I just kind of clean off all three shelves but I just take them and I got the nice let me show you I've got a nice little haul and this is actually going to help the tomatoes that are out there trying their hardest to ripen so I don't want to put anything that's already trying to turn up here on this top shelf because it's going to be turning before you know it so it'll be fine on over on the kitchen counter or but I just set them up here and I go through on every couple of days you know as I see one or two I'll pull them off and then I keep a big container and I quarter them and just cut them in quarters and then drop them down in the freezer bags and pop them in the freezer so hope this helps guys and if you try it come back and let me know how it worked for you I did this last year and I know a lot of other people that did it also when it worked for them so if you like this video please remember to give it a thumbs up and until next time guys be blessed