slide writes
Is this a remarkable thing - a tomato plant lasting more than one year
AND withstanding freezes? Or are we making a celebration over nothing
in
particular. BTW, it's fruit now is just reaching ripe - at least a
month
ahead of its younger competition.

No surprises at it lasting more than one year - it is a perennial. In
the UK we grow it as an annual because it can't cope with our long,
cold, wet winters with very low light levels (even some cacti can cope
with frost if they are bone dry - it's the continuous cold wet that does
for them).

I hadn't considered it as coping with frost, but the occasional frosty
night with brighter days is very different from long periods of sun
rising at nearly 9am and setting before 4pm and never getting high into
the sky, temperature not rising above 40deg F and sometimes staying
below freezing all day.

According to wikipedia, the enzyme that causes the ripening stops
working at below 54 deg.
--
Kay