Tomato plants and grow bags

[Rewindthefilm]

Seeing as we had our first frost today, what do I do with tomato plants now? Can they go in the compost heap? Can I make fertiliser out of them? Information online goes from “burn or bin it” to “compost it”. What about the soil from the grow bags? Thanks for any advice.

Have they completely drooped? If not, leave them a couple of days to see what happens. Any green fruit can be collected now, and either ripened on a sunny windowsill, or can be turned into chutney, or chopped up & frozen, to be added to casseroles and things.

The compost in the growbags can't be re-used next year, but spreading the used compost on your flower beds helps with soil conditioning and improving the soil structure.

Healthy leaves I'd put in the compost but if any blight- I burn them.
I'd spread the soil around the garden if healthy, but I'm not sure about my soil that has blight in though?

I’ve got new flowers on mine, will they do anything or is it too cold now?

I've spent this morning picking green fruit, then chopping the plants up. Plants and compost now in the compost bin. No idea if it's right or not, but its my standard "get rid" for tomatoes.

Thank you! For some reason, I never actually considered I could cook with green toms! Well I’ve at least 30 of these so will see if I can ripen on the windowsill, otherwise it’ll go in a sauce. I am in the first trimester and the thought of chutney isn’t very appealing!

@SM4713 If blight is fungal, wouldn’t it be sat in the soil?

Yes, blight is fungal and I assume it sits in the soil too, hence I was hoping someone would come along to advise what I should do with the affected soil?

I too was going to say that most of my green tomatoes turned red just sitting on the window sill. I had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year and here are some things I've done:

• boiled the tomatoes down to reduce, remove as many as skins as possible and froze in freezer bags to use as I would tinned tomatoes in pasta, cottage pie etc
• Its a fruit, and actually makes a delicious, sweet jam for bread/toast Sweet Tomato Jam With Honey and Vanilla Recipe - NYT Cooking (nytimes.com)
• Panzanella recipe | BBC Good Food
• I also tried this recipe. Not as 'tomatoey' as ripe tomatoes, but something you can try if your tomatoes does turn red. Fried Green Tomatoes {A Southern Classic} (simplyrecipes.com)

@SM4713 am definitely not an expert but I think it would be a risk to spread the soil so you might have to garden bin/ tip it? Thanks for the fried green tomatoes recipe- looks like my kind of thing.