Sometimes I just can't let things die

Every year I plant tomatoes. I usually harvest a few before the frost kills the plants. The night before the first frost I cut all the green tomatoes from the plants and leave them on ther vines in a cardboard box. The theory is that they'll continue to ripen on the vines and one can enjoy the tomatoes for anothe couple of weeks. What actually happens is that about half of the tomatoes shrivel and die, and those which ripen develop a mealy texture. Not delicious.

This year I stood and looked at my tomatoes and fresh herbs and thought, I don't want them to die. So I went to the store and bought boxes to plant them in, came home and transplanted the mature plants. I know the risks of doing this, but if they died from shock I'd be no worse off than if I left them for the frost to kill. What I didn't realize was that the plants had already been nipped, so they had a multitude of dead/dying leaves. I also had no idea how large the plants actually were.

Regardless, I tranplanted and transported my tomatoes and herbs into my house. Everything is thriving except for the purple basil. I'm not sure how long everything will live, but I think we'll have tomatoes well into November, and herbs indefinitely. Darrin's hoping for an early plant demise so we'll have more space, but he never did love tomatoes. The rest of us, however, are very pleased that we don't have to try to salvage mealy tomatoes from a box.