Frozen Tomatoes?

When the big freeze came along, a few weeks before Christmas, I bought all new frost cover for the container gardens. I have been stockpiling windows from craigslist, but don't have enough windows or time yet to work on building the new greenhouse, so I dug my heels in and said "This is the year I don't lose my tomatoes int he container gardens."

I think this is well foreshadowed- EVERYTHING FROZE.

I tried hard, and hoped, but the leaves shriveled up like they do once frozen.  Honestly, I think there is a chance the Pichu Fruit has made it, but only tome will tell on those. But Bailey went out and harvested all she could find of the tomatoes and pichu fruit, and told me that the good news meant the herbs were still holding their own and the peppers were taking a stand.

So much for the fancy frost cover.

Over the weekend, while the kids were outside working on a history project, I got to pulling hte dead tomato plants out  I had put it off as long as I could and the porch looked awful.  As I did, I found a few straggler tomatoes that somehow were sitting on the porch.  Certainly not bright red, but ripening.

I sat them on the counter.

This afternoon, as I was loading up to head for the farmers market, I held them out to the kids sitting at the table working on schoolwork.  "Care to be a taste tester?"  Wyatt eyed me suspiciously, but will do anything to take a break from math, so he took one, as did Bailey.  (I am pretty sure just about anything beats the studying for the Chem test.) 

They both agreed they needed a little more time to ripen, but otherwise were just fine. In other words, maybe I should have left them on the counter for a bit first.  We are all spoiled enough to like ours vine ripened, of course.

Frozen tomatoes could be just fine. Who knew? 

So tell me, have you ever had tomatoes survive a big frost? What frost cover works for you, too? I will get to building that greenhouse, bit it is a bit late for now!