What do I do with all these not-ripe vegetables?

15 years ago

I've got lots of tomatoes that are green, as well as serrano, jalapeno, cayenne, and bell peppers. Things are getting cool around here (i'm in MD)... will these things eventually ripen? Should I just scrap everything?

Some of the leaves are showing sign of blight. A lot of the fruits look in pretty good shape though (although they are still green, as I said).

This is my first year with a garden. Is it time to cut my losses and start yanking everything?

Thanks as always.

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Comments (7)

denninmi
15 years ago
Oh, heavens, no, don't "pull the plug" just yet. You could have up to a month or more of frost-free weather yet in MD, I would guess, although it does depend on both the bigger weather picture across E. North America, and your local climate influences, such as altitude.

And, there are a whole lot of ways to use things up -- green tomatoes make all kinds of nice relishes, preserves, pickles, etc. The peppers, even if still green, are just as useful, and can be frozen, dried, pickled, whatever.

Check out the Harvest Forum for a lot of good green tomato and pepper recipes.
cabrita
15 years ago
All the peppers you mention can be eaten green, including the cayenne. It is better red, but green makes good salsa too. I use green tomatoes for salsa, green tomato relish, fried green tomatoes, pickled tomatoes, and grilled green tomatoes (yes, they are good!)

Another nice trick I recently discovered. Cucumbers are related to melons, and under ripe melons have a cucumber taste. So if you melons do not ripen, just pretend you got a large cucumber and you can use it in salads. Even if the melon is a little bit sweet it should work with assertive salad greens like arugula or radicchio. My melons will ripen, I just picked some too early since it is my first year growing melons so I did not know when to pick them, but this is how I found out you can still use them.
Cabrita
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plant-one-on-me
15 years ago
You can also pick your tomatoes, bring indoors and wait...they will ripen.
spogarden
15 years ago
You could try stressing the tomatoes to help them along, lack of water and the old shovel in the ground to trim the roots always helps. Some of the peppers can be frozen for later use and some dried, you just have to watch the weather report and pick right before it freezes.
I never thought about using unripe melons in salad, I have a bunch in my garden that I know will not get enough heat this season to sweeten them up. But you are right, they don't taste bad, just not sweet.
grandad_2003
15 years ago
Green tomatoes will ripen if individually wrapped in newspaper. Use half sheets of newspaper and individually wrap each tomato. Place in a box after wrapping. May be better to stack only a couple of layers deep. Check periodically. Very green tomatoes may take a couple of weeks or more to ripen. Check for and discard tomatoes that spoil... These will be easy to find with the newspaper becoming wet.
rose_nutty
15 years ago
Yes, and the green tomatoes will taste almost as good after they ripen indoors as they did ripened on the vine. They won't be tasteless like the ones you buy. The main reason grocery store tomatoes are so tasteless is that they are not really ripe - they just use ethelene gas (I think it is) to turn them red so we think they are ripe enough to use.
leisa_in_md
15 years ago
Thanks for starting this thread! I have SO MANY green tomatoes, and I was just wondering what to do with them all. I didn't know there was so much you could do with them.

What do I do with all these not-ripe vegetables?

Comments (7)

denninmi

cabrita

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