The best way to ripen green tomatoes
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Fruit | 32 comments
Danny loves guzzling our ripe tomatoes straight from the vine. This is partly why I grow them. It’s great to see my tomatoes savoured and relished. Now the evenings are drawing in, I often see him out with a torch when I swing in from work, searching to see if any have ripened in the autumn sunshine. The ripening process is slow at this stage of the season.
We have managed to keep the tomato blight at bay by removing blighty leaves, stalks and fruit as soon as they appear. This has to be done daily and the blighty bits burnt. We haven’t used any sprays this summer so each tomato that Danny pops in his mouth is 100% organic. When the blight was at its height I mentioned the grisly spray word, to be met with a loud negative rejoinder.
Unfortunately, Danny didn’t twig that the vines at the front of the house needed to be watered when I was ill in bed recently. Too much or too little water can split the tomatoes. So we have a good crop of split, which need a day or two of warm sun before they are transmogrified into our rich tomato sauce. We make gallons of the stuff and this generally sees us through until the spring.
This weekend I had planned to move all the non split green tomatoes to the greenhouse to ripen. A small foray onto the internet told me otherwise. Here are a few expert tips that will allow your green tomatoes to ripen well.
Some people remove the leaves from the vines and hang the vines in a cool garage or shed to ripen. I am going to ripen our green tomatoes in the house. I used to ripen them on the windowsills but I have discovered that direct sunlight hardens the skins and there is a much better way to ripen them indoors.
Pick ripe, nearly ripe and mature green fruits before the possibility of frost. Remove long stems to prevent them from piercing each other. Store tomatoes in cardboard or wooden boxes, 1 to 2 layers deep, in a cool moderately humid room. Cover the boxes with newspaper as tomatoes need darkness to ripen.. Check the toms every day and remove the ripe ones.
As tomatoes ripen, they naturally release ethylene gas, which stimulates ripening. To speed up the ripening process put a ripening tomato, apple or banana in the box with green tomatoes. To slow the ripening process and give yourself an extended harvest store some tomatoes, covered in cardboard boxes, in a cooler location.
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I too am having problems with my tomatoes, I have a lovely crop, no splits or anything yet they won’t ripen at all, I have tried ripening them with a banana, that did not work, any tips appreciated, thanks.
I would not mind any recipes where green tomatoes can be used, such as chutney.
Thankyou
Hi Fran, Sarra, and Jano
I’ve emailed Mark so hopefully he will send the recipe.
Please may I have a copy of the chutney recipe too.
Loving the site, have made sloe gin, blackberry vodka ,please may i have the chutney recipe so I dont look too much like a lush. thanks.
hi can i have the green onion chutney recipie too 🙂
Hi Fran
I’d love this recipe too.
Hi Mark, would love to try your recipe for tomato and onion chutney with cumin and chilli, if you could send it to to me that would be great. Many thanks. Fran.
I’m no expert but the plastic container might have had something to do with it – not allowing any moisture to evaporate properly?
Hi,
I put some green tomatoes in a plastic container inside a cardboard box with a banana next to them, some with branches on, and some without. About five days later they had fluffy mould growing on them, and had gone brown on the bottom. I’m not sure what I did wrong. Any suggestions?
Hi Denise,
Another cause of rot is Blossom End Rot. This is caused by too little or too much water. This generally hits in the summer.
Do you have a greenhouse? If so, why not shift your strawberries into the greenhouse and see what happens? You are probably too late for any great action.