Tomatoes everywhere and nowhere

It had to happen sooner or later, the frostyness of this early onset cooler weather, the calculations that if I pulled them now I would have time for a carrot crop before the spring planting, and the advancing wilt meant the yesterday the last few remaining tomatoes left the balcony garden. The tomato tree, contained white tomatoes. Except as you can see in this picture they were all pretty green.


They are now lined up on the window sill (along with 2 in the fruit basket next to elderly bananas and one on my bedroom bedside table by the window just for good luck.)


Hopefully all will turn, in due course, to a ripe yellowish-white. I thought with despair that none will ever ripen but then I noticed an odd yellowish round thing under the cactus bowl. I pulled it out and low and behold it was a ripening white tomato. Turns out he was one I had pulled a couple of weeks ago, just to see if it would work better inside, then promptly forgot about him when he decided to hide under the cactus bowl! The colours are a bit funny in the flash photo so I included both for contrast. Yellower than some white tomatoes but he still counts as a white tomato to me.


Now he looks like this, not shiny really, but good enough to eat! Let's hope the others can ripen like this too. Taste test results will be in soon. Yet for now, outside on the balcony garden there are no more tomatoes. Zilch, nothing. It is a tomato free environment. Yet all is not really as it seems. Inside, over the last month, I've been growing some tomato seedlings. Siberian tomatoes. At one point they looked like this, growing in all directions. (beleive it or not that funny one is growing AWAY from the sun!!!)


Now they are a bit bigger and, in a week or so, I am going to plant the two best ones in their own pot. Now you might think I am a bit nutty, tomatoes don't grow outside in winter. You may also think Oh Prue, siberian tomatoes may fruit at a colder temperature but they still can't grow outside in winter. Well these tomatoes are NOT going outside. The strawberries on the window sill will be moved to make way for the indoor tomato experiment. I am hoping with the warmth of the room and the large amount of afternoon sun these siberian tomatoes might just give me home grown yumminess over the winter. I'll keep you posted, but for now, I've left this guy in charge!