Nothing beats home-grown tomatoes! When the
temperatures start dropping in late summer to early fall, getting those
last few green tomatoes to ripen seems like an impossible task. So what
should you do: pick the still-green tomatoes or leave them on the vine
and risk losing them to frost?
The majority of tomato varieties require a
temperature of at least 60°F to ripen. Hence, depending on the
conditions, some green tomatoes may not ripen at all, and you’ll need to
resort to tricks to ripen them faster. In this article, we offer many
tips that will help you ripen green tomatoes - both on the vine and
after picking them. You can also use many of these tricks to ripen
store-bought tomatoes.
How to ripen tomatoes on the vine
If sub-zero weather is still some time
away, you can successfully ripen tomatoes on the plant. To speed up the
ripening process, keep these handy tricks in mind:
1. Fertilize the plant. Even though the growing season is nearly over,
don’t stop fertilizing the plant regularly until you’ve picked the last
tomato. Plant food will not only improve the flavor of the tomatoes, but
it will also speed up the ripening itself.
2. When the weather dips beneath the seventies at night, most tomato
plants will not be able to grow new fruits. Therefore, you can safely
trim off any new flowers and buds, as existing flowers only take away
energy from the tomato plants - energy that will be otherwise redirected
towards ripening existing fruits.
3. Trim away any spotted or otherwise
diseased leaves - no need to add more insecticide or fungicide at this
point. You can also cut off the tomato plant's lower leaves to boost its
capacity to ripen fruit. Optional: remove bruised or unripe fruit to
put more energy into well-formed fruit and hurry up the ripening
process.
4. Temperatures are dropping faster than expected? Dig up the plant and
move it indoors to your garage or garden shed. No need to pot it up if
you don’t have a big enough planter - simply wrap the root ball in some
old fabric and twine, and keep watering and caring for the plant as
usual until the last tomatoes are ripe. Just make sure to provide the
plant with some light, even when you move it indoors.
5. Once the tomatoes are fully grown but
still green, reduce the watering slightly. This can sometimes force the
fruit to ripen faster.
6. When it’s getting really chilly at night, you can cover the plants
with clear sheets of plastic overnight.
When are tomatoes ripe?
Tomatoes can ripen quite fast, so it’s recommended to watch after them
every day and pick the vegetable when it’s just right - a ripe tomato
should be nice and red (or yellow, or orange, or pink) but not soft just
yet.
To pick your tomatoes, all you need to do is hold the tomato and twist
it until the fruit is detached from the stem. This will be a fairly easy
task if the tomato is ripe.
When should I harvest tomatoes?
If you're trying to decide when to pick
your tomatoes, know that you don’t have to always wait for them to fully
ripen. Tomatoes are among those fruits and veggies that will continue
ripening indoors even after you’ve picked them. And this comes
especially handy at the end of the season - when night frosts become
certain.
To pick a green tomato, use a pair of garden shears and snip the fruit
off together with a little bit of the stem. Once you collected all your
unripe tomatoes in a basket, don’t put them in the fridge just yet, and
use one of the following methods to get them to ripen nicely.
1. This is probably the easiest method of all - just line up the unripe
tomatoes on a sunny windowsill and wait for them to ripen on their own.
Though super easy, this method works best for unripe but not fully green
tomatoes. If the green tomatoes start to shrivel, it means that they
need more humidity - try putting them in a plastic bag during the day
and open it overnight.
Tip: place those tomatoes that are very
close to being ripe closer to the window. The extra sun and warmth will
help boost their flavor.
2. Have a bit more time to let your tomatoes ripen?
Wrap the tomatoes in
some paper; in 3-4 weeks, they’ll be all set to be included in a
delicious salad. Newspaper, craft paper, old paper bags - all of them
work equally well for this trick. Just wrap the green fruit in paper and
store them in a dry, dark spot in your home.
Make sure to check the tomatoes every couple of days and discard any
that start rotting. If you see signs of rot or mold before fully
ripening, it could mean that the storage space is too humid.
3. Use the paper bag hack - place the
unripe tomatoes in a paper bag with an apple. The apple will produce
ethylene gas as it ripens, and this will speed up the ripening of the
tomato too. Of course, check the bag every day or so and wait until the
tomatoes are perfectly ripe. Remember that tomatoes require a location
with a temperature of at least 50-55°F to ripen and be juicy and
flavorful, so pick your storage area wisely.
And last but not least, if you don't want to wait for tomatoes to ripen,
know that you don't have to. You can use green tomatoes as is.