I picked several dozen green tomatoes off the dead vines in my Roxborough garden in early December, before the first deep freeze of the winter reached Philadelphia. You’re supposed to wrap green tomatoes in newspaper, put them in paper bags and store them in a cool place to get them to ripen, but I put them all in a big bowl on my kitchen counter, where they sat for weeks. I had intended to make fried green tomatoes with some, while waiting to see if the others would ripen. Over several weeks of neglect, half rotted, but the others eventually appeared to ripen. Their pallid orange color didn’t lead me to expect them to taste like much, but they weren’t bad at all. They had an unmistakable homegrown taste, with no mushy or mustiness from aging, and were certainly better than anything we’ll find in local markets around here between now and June.