Green tomatoes. Not exactly inedible, but close. I pickle mine (Post G31).
I have lots of them, in several different varieties. And it looks like the weather is going to turn cold, around here, just a few days from now.
What to do?
Source: My garden, this morning. That’s “Celebrity” on the left, and “Big Momma” on the right. I have not yet gotten even one ripe tomato off these late-season plants.
You don’t exactly have to be …
a genius to figure out that I planted my last tomato plants way too late in the season.
Mea culpa. Seems like it’s going to take …
a minor miracle, or some type of …
magic to turn all these …
god-blessed green tomatoes red.
Not an easy ask, as the greatest minds of the ages …
have cast their eyes on unripe fruit …
and pondered solutions, whether autocratic …
or democratic, …
in nature.
But as far as I know, short of gassing them with ethylene, like grocery-store tomatoes, there really ain’t a whole lot one can do, except wait and see.
Or is there? Maybe it’s time for a brief review of my options, before the colder temperatures set in.
N.B., yes, I know that tomatoes are a New World fruit. What, you bought the pictures up to that point?
Source: Pictures are primarily from the Gencraft and Freepik AI sites.
Tomato ripening fact and fiction.
Here’s what I think I know about ripening tomatoes.
1: Tomatoes are climacteric fruits. That is, once a tomato begins to ripen, it will continue to ripen, even if taken off the vine. As a result, anything showing any blush of color can be picked and brought inside and will eventually ripen fully at room temperature. In addition, tomatoes that have reached the “mature green” phase — when the skin starts lightening, but not yet turning color — may also ripen off the vine, but it takes some doing (as in, storing them with other ripening fruits, so that they are naturally exposed to ethylene gas.)
Source: Ripening Tomatoes, Marita Cantwell, Dept. Plant Sciences, UC Davis, Fruit Ripening and Retail Handling Workshop, Postharvest Technology Center, UC Davis, March 18-19, 2013
Whether or not ripening off the vine reduces the flavor or alters the flavor profile of the tomatoes is an area of debate, or may depend on the variety. That said, it does appear true that tomatoes ripened off the vine have lower acidity, a fact that matters (a lot!) if you try canning them (reference U Conn.).
2: If the weather is too hot, tomatoes will not start the ripening process. I dealt with this one in several earlier posts (e.g., Post G22-043, G22-041). The problem is warm nights. Nighttime temperatures above 70F will prevent the start of the ripening process. But you only really see that, in your garden, if there’s a long stretch of warm nights, because anything that has started to ripen before those warm nights set in will continue to ripen.
3: Sunlight on the tomato fruit itself does not affect ripening. I read this from several reliable sources, despite folklore to the contrary. E.g., Cornell University Extension Service says so. So does West Virginia University.
4: Stressing the plant might speed ripening. A lot of seemingly-reputable sites suggest (e.g.) damaging the plant roots by driving a shovel into the dirt a few inches from the main stem of the plant.
5: Cold weather prevents tomatoes from ripening, and can damage green tomatoes. Everyone agrees that ripening slows as temperatures drop. But estimates of “how cold is too cold” vary a lot. Briefly:
Optimal temperature for tomato ripening: 70F to 75F
- 68F to 77F (harvesttotable.com).
- 68F to 77F (Park Seed.com)
- 70F to 75F (Cornell University Extension Service)
- 68F to 77F (Purdue University)
- 70F (Oklahoma State University)
Ripening stops below 60F:
- Consistently below 60F (tomatodirt.com).
- 55F (harvesttotable.com).
- 60F (Park Seed)
- 60F (The Spruce)
Green fruits are injured below 50F
- 50F (reference).
- Several days below 50F (University of Oregon).
- 50F (Bonnie Plants. Explanation is that this destroys ripening enzymes.)
I get the news I need on the weather report
Bearing in mind two key temperatures — ripening ceases around 60F, and damage occurs to green fruits around 50F — I now have less than three days to figure out this year’s green-tomato strategy. (Today being Thursday.)
Source: National Weather Service.
Longer term, looks like cooler weather is here to stay.
Source: Weather.com
Conclusion
For me, the gardening season will effectively end this weekend, owing to the onset of colder temperatures. Sure, it’s not going to freeze. But it’s going to be cold enough that nothing much will be growing.
I have a few stray this-n-that’s to pick. Summer squash, winter squash, okra, and so on. Some sweet potatoes to dig up. And whatnot.
But my biggest problem is that I have lots and lots of lovely green tomatoes.
I don’t think I can provide much nighttime temperature protection to those plants. So it mostly boils down to closing out the tomato season as gracefully as possible.
Anything with a tinge of color, by Saturday afternoon, should probably be picked. Those will ripen off the vine, just fine. Just sit them on the kitchen counter for a bit.
I’ll put a little time into trying to figure out which of the green fruits are “green mature”. The descriptions of that are beyond vague, but boil down to whitening of the green skin, particularly at the blossom end of the tomato. So I’ll take a shot at picking those, then follow instructions (wrap in newspaper, store where cool, check frequently, and so on).
Everything else — green but not “green mature”? If I can’t protect them from the sub-50F temperatures, they have to be picked. I guess I’ll be fermenting a few quarts of pickled green tomatoes. The booby prize of home gardening.
