Ripening Tomatoes Through Careful Neglect

2 weeks ago I had a tomato plant died suddenly of Southern Blight (the previous blog entries are here and here.) I picked the orphaned tomatoes and stuck them in a container while I waited till I had time to make that Green Tomato Relish that Jan C. told me about.

Then a funny thing happened. One tomato ripened. It was delicious. Probably would have been better if I'd ignored it some more. Then another did the same thing. Now it's happening to two more. Not sure how long I can take ignoring it as it looks really good. While the tomatoes are small, for some reason it's still gratifying to see what should have been a complete failure of a plant still give me something yummy during its short life.

The other plant is doing fine and is 6 feet tall. Perhaps due to swift removal of the sick one or just because of complete happenstance.