The Italian hanging tomato plants are loaded with fruit, but still need to ripen before we can harvest and store them for winter. It’s again the time of tropical storms and Late Blight, and we’re now in a race against time. The season’s short and fraught with peril — there’s a nice crop, however, it doesn’t count if it doesn’t make it in and all’s for naught.
Only a handful of clusters at the bottom of the plants have begun to turn color. With moist conditions following this summer’s heat spell and Late Blight quickly closing in, the rest are still perilously green.
For this year, we narrowed it down to growing only two varieties of hanging tomatoes. They’re both from Puglia, and similar in size (about a golfball) and shape.
The ones pictured above are Aprile, named for the agriturismo where we discovered these tomatoes and saved seed from two years ago.
We planted two of the Aprile, and two of the Ponderosa sel Oro (above), another variety from Puglia. Last year’s initial grow-out was waylaid by Tropical Storm Irene, forcing us to harvest too early. With a little luck, we’ll have a more fair comparison this year.
Diary of a Tomato 
These tomatoes are magnificent! I hope they win the race.
I am keeping my fingers cross that that the tomatoes ripen quickly. They are very beautiful.
You have a fine crop there—just WAITING to ripen. Hope they make it!!!
:)
Your tomatoes are looking good! Hope they make it before the blight.
I too hope your tomatoes make it. I am having the same issues, late ripening tomatoes and the threat of late blight which has made appearance not far from my garden.
What a fabulous crop of tomatoes you are about to have! I cannot tell you how envious I am!
WOW! that’s alot of tomatoes on one plant! Hope they’ll get nice and ripe without blight.
I hope the tomatoes make it for you too!
Hanging tomatoes!! Sounds fun, I sure hope you win the race and get to harvest them!!
Well, if those tomatoes are blighted, they look darn good. Hope they come through for you.
We’ve had early blight, which is usual, but areas nearby are reporting Late Blight.
I think you’ll get a decent amount of tomatoes, even if you do have to bring some in green!
Excellent! Did you ever find out what the real name for the Aprile was? They are great looking.
I hope they do well for you.
Now that we know what to look for, we hope to find out more about these pomodorini appesi when we return to Puglia this fall!
Great tomato adventure. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for a good harvest…
That is awesome. We had a horrible tomato year and the squirrels just ate almost all of them. We had about 10 plants and got very few tomatoes. I am hoping yours survive. They look great. I might try that variety next year. Thank you for the agroturismo link also. Looks beautiful! Is it a place for families too or just couples?
How rude of the squirrels! We had a few casualties from the extra plants we had in containers but mostly the tomatoes are still hanging in there. It looks like a new grandchild has joined the Masseria Aprile family since we visited, and they have a room available that includes kitchen facilities that might be suitable for families.