What are people doing with their green tomatoes to ripen?

13 years ago

Ok, looks like our summer is coming to a fast end! I have tons of green tomatoes on the vine. Boo Hoo...

In order to save my dreams of preserving tomatoes every which way but loose (drying, pressure canning, water bath), which method is best to rippen them?

I'm not really interested in fried green tomatoes ):

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Comments (5)

david52 Zone 6
13 years ago
These days, our nights are down in the 40's, last night 36ÂºF, so we're not far off as well. At those temps, it's as if the tomatoes are in the fridge every night. I go around and carefully pick anything thats remotely starting to change color from green to yellow - carefully meaning so they don't get bruised. Then I take them inside and lay them out in a single layer on newspaper/card board out of direct sunlight. They ripen up within a week - 10 days.

When we know its going to frost, then we pick everything thats full sized and put them in boxes.
macybaby
13 years ago
I know this goes against what you are suppose to do, but I've been putting them in my greenhouse. They are in direct sunlight and it gets around 90 degrees in there. There's a roof vent that kicks on when the temp gets up there and it seems to keep it from getting real hot.

Usually takes 2 -3 days and they are ripe enough to process. I always pick mine when they start turning orange or else the bugs get most of them.

The paste type I just put in boxes - this is what they look like when I pick them

And this is 2 -3 days later. Paste type are quite firm so they don't get squished like the bigger ones would.

In each batch, I usually end up with a handful of really green ones (picking mistakes) but they all ripen up nicely.

I'm hoping the weather holds a few more weeks - while the paste type are about done, the big eating ones are just getting started.

I'm in south central SD.

Cathy
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I am now processing my tomatoes when I picked the plants clean in late Sept. Put the tomatoes in boxes when I picked them and put them in the "sun room", a south facing greenhouse room full of windows which we vent into the rest of the house. Just let them sit there and they are now completely ripe, although some of the smaller greener ones didn't ripen much beyond what you you get in the store. Have been eating the fresh tomatoes since picking, very good when they ripen, but now processing the rest into sauce as the larger ones are starting to spoil--the Big Boy types don't keep and ripen as well. Smaller/medium ones like Early Girl and romas do the best.
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Did the vines get frosted? If not, you can still use them for canning. If they were frosted, you can make stuff to freeze. I ended up making a big batch of meatless spaghetti sauce to freeze with the last of mine. They were from vines that were "lightly frosted". I had them covered, but anywhere the vine touched the tarp, they were damaged. I chose to proceed as if they were from damaged vines. Picked ones that had even a hint of light green, pink blush and allowed them to ripen indoors. Deanna
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Something that probably works, Karen! Let me tell what doesn't work for me: A lot of people wrap their tomatoes in newspaper. When I've tried that, I've ended up with lots of rotten tomatoes! I forget to unwrap and look. Instead, I do the very simple thing of putting them in a basket and "sorting thru" them every few days. Moving from 1 container to another gives me a chance to separate out the ripe ones. This year's tomatoes lingered on the vines longer than most years. Many, many green cherries went down before the onslaught of Jack Frost but few of the larger varieties. Got lucky with warm weather up here near the border. I know that we all like to test the climate envelop with late-developing varieties but there's some real value in the early-ripening indeterminates. Bloody Butchers came back later and so did Early Girls. I almost hate to admit but will do so here: I still grow Early Girl and have for over 20 years . . . Just a timid tomato grower, I guess. Luckily, there are those who encourage me with appropriate choices for my garden that would otherwise go unimagined. Steve
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Just put them in the house in the kitchen on a counter or somewhere else away from the sun, meaning no windowsill which dries them out and no paper bags with a cut apple or whatever since all that does is to increase the concentration of the gas ethylene, which is part of the ripening process naturally but when in a paper bag it's like the gassing of fruits that is done commercially and those are the anemic looking lousy tasting fruits that we see in the winter. I hope that there's at least a blush on those fruits since total greenies don't usually ripen up with the best of tastes, but since you already have harvested the fruits, just go fo it. Well, that certainly was a long sentence. LOL BTW the name of the variety is Cherokee Purple, not Purple Cherokee and I ought to know since my best friend Craig LeHoullier named it, but Seeds by Design in CA, a wholsale place, sent out seed lists with Purple Cherokee on it and maybe still does. Carolyn, who is envious of ANYONE with mature fruits these days, b'c her plants are so behind that it's dicey that anything will mature before the first killing frost. There, she said it, killing frost. Sigh.
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pixie_lou
13 years ago
At the beginning of September I gave my tomatoes and tomatillos a good pruning. Cut off any blossoms, and cut off about 25% of the leaves and greenery. This way it gives the plant the opportunity to focus all the energy into ripening the tomatoes as opposed to plant growth. Every few days I go out and pinch off any new blossoms.

I'm in Massachusetts, and I figure I have until early October to get my tomatoes ripe. So I do the pruning when I have 1 month to go. Which sadly coincides to when the maters are beginning to ripen in bulk.
dgkritch
13 years ago
I'm just waiting....and praying for no frost.
I've been pinching tops for a couple of weeks.

So far only about a dozen small tomatoes from 14 plants.
Sigh. I don't wait well.

Deanna
kriswrite
13 years ago
My simple method: http://proverbsthirtyonewoman.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-to-do-with-green-tomatoes.html

Here is a link that might be useful: What to Do with Green Tomatoes

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What are people doing with their green tomatoes to ripen?

Comments (5)

david52 Zone 6

macybaby

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pixie_lou

dgkritch

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