To clean your hands use a ripe tomato.

Zeuspaul

Lava soap and a fingernail scrub brush takes care of anything and everything I get on my hands.

Dave

Yeah, what Dave said. When I was a teenager/early 20's I worked at a large-ish Greenhouse/Nursery and LAVA was the only soap they would have for employee use. Worked like a charm!!

I have heard of people leaving their clothing out in the bright sun for a couple days during the day and the stains goes right away.

I should add a page of how to clean up from tomatoes to my how to grow tomatoes website at www.backyard-tomatoes.com

Do you guys mind if I use your tomato cleaning ideas to my site?

Here is a link that might be useful: www.backyard-tomatoes.com

I agree with zeus that a ripe tomato, even partially rotten, is THE best. And use a nail brush.

I was raised on a farm and we had acres and acres of tomatoes and I wore what I called my farm clothes to hoe, pick, etc.

Of course the stains didn't come off the shorts or long pants that I wore, but they weren't expected to.

And when I started growing hundreds of tomato plants myself each season I did the same thing, that is, I wore my garden clothes and couldn't care one whit if they got stained. They were washed time and time again, and still kept the stains on, but as I said, that's the reason why I think folks should have separate garden clothes.

Sneakers; green and black from stains. Fine. Those were my garden sneaks. No way could one get the stains off them.

I'd have three pairs of sneaks; dress sneaks, backups to those and garden sneaks.

Worked for me. LOL

Carolyn

in the years before stain remover, my mom would put lemon juice and table salt on stained whites, then leave them out in full sun for an afternoon.

i keep two gardening dresses. they get washed, but i never expect them come completely stain-free. i wear one while the other is in the wash.

my hands and nails....fingernail brush and dawn dish liquid. i work in a vet clinic. with handling all the pets, a little dirt under the nails is not as horrible/unacceptable as when i worked in a hospital!!

what about adding some pine sol to the laundry? it seems to get rid of just about anything. It works great for jeans

Best thing I've found for scrubbing hands is foot scrub. It has pumice in it, smells great, and has some sort of conditioner in it so it leaves your hands soft. There are many different brands out there. I keep a tube of it at my kitchen sink along with a nail brush.

I just removed tomato leaf stains on my very beloved overalls by applying a generous amount of Fels Naptha Barsoap and some oxyclean powder. I forgot about it for over an hour and came back to find it gone!!!Yeeaaays!

For those people that don't have a free supply of landscape tape for tomato ties. You can use grocery bags to tie your tomatoes.

See my Flicker Photo showing how to make tomato ties from grocery bags.

Karyl

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Ties Made From Grocery Bags