A social media post I made yetserday about the plethora of ripening garden tomatoes I have on my counter top spurred some questions about how to best turn those green tomatoes red. This year was a great tomato year, especially because I started my own seed late last winter. The healthy plants produced a great crop of heirloom tomatoes this summer and the fantastic fall weather elongated the growing season well into October. I even had a few prolific volunteers spring up around my compost bin.
Just before the significant downturn in nighttime temperatures starting in October, I harvested the more mature green fruit from the vines and spread them out onto my kitchen counter. I actually missed getting them before the first frost due to some poor weather forecasting, but luckily it was a light frost that just nipped the plants and left the fruit undamaged.
If you're looking for your tomatoes to ripen indoors, it is important to only harvest the fruit that is at least 3/4 of full size. Less mature fruit will most likely not ripen. You can always pickle them. Pickled green tomatoes are pretty tasty. It is also critical that you leave behind any diseased or blemished fruit. Just like the proverbial "bad apple," bad tomatoes will also spoil the bunch.
When bringing your green tomatoes indoors, there are several important things to remember:
Store them in a cool place out of direct sunlight. Excesive sunlight and heat will cause your tomatoes to rot, not ripen. The ideal ripening temperature is between 65-70 degrees. Mine took over the center island in my kitchen.
As the tomatoes ripen, immediately remove any fruit that is showing signs of rotting to avoid it from contaminating the others.
Do not refrigerate them. Excessive cold will prevent them from ripening and will break down the cellular structure of the tomato, making them meally and mushy. The latter is true for ripe tomatoes as well.
Be patient. It can take several weeks for them to start to ripen. To hasten ripening, you can either wrap or cover the tomatoes wth newspaper. This traps the natural ethylene gas that is given off by the fruit and encourages ripening. Placing them near other ripening fruit like bananas or apples accomplishes the same thing. Remember to check on them daily so you can promptly remove any rotting fruit.
I am grateful that I was able to have such a fantastic autumn harvest of green tomatoes and most are ripening nicely. It's wonderful to enjoy garden-grown tomatoes into December. While they're not as good as the vine-ripened fruit during the summer, they are certainly better than what you can find this time of year at the store.
Happy ripening!