Great Green Tomato Experiment
This year, the garden wasn’t ready to give up when fall came. My tomatoes were still producing plenty of fruit. They wanted summer back as much as I did. Unfortunately, the weather just wouldn’t cooperate. I covered them to protect from frosts and to hopefully keep them warm, but I finally had to concede. The growing season had come to an end here in the hills of Massachusetts. I’m in zone 5B, but we get a bit colder because our home is on top of a hill and the wind chill can take the temp down five to ten degrees.
Knowing I was in a race against time, I made the decision to prep the garden for winter. I harvested everything and cut the plants back. I ended up with three buckets of tomatoes. Most as you can see from the picture were green. Now, I do love a fried green tomato but all I had was Roma and Cherry Tomatoes. Not really the frying kinds. I was going to scour the internet for green tomato recipes but there were just so many tomatoes and what I really wanted was sauce, so I decided to do a ripening experiment.
Usually I can ripen a few tomatoes on the windowsill, but I don’t have enough windows in my house for this many. Some gardeners will remove the plant and hang it upside down in a garage, but I don’t have a garage so that option was clearly out. I have heard mixed reviews about wrapping them in newspaper, putting them in a cardboard box, a paper bag, or a drawer to ripen them. Tomatoes need a warm and dry environment to ripen, ideally 70º F. When enclosed in a bag or box, they give off ethylene which stimulates the ripening process. Additionally, if you add a banana to the mix it can speed up the process because bananas produce the most ethylene gas of all fruits. Due to the amount of completely green tomatoes I had it seemed like the banana in the box was going to be my best bet.
I grabbed a large cardboard box that was about 6” deep and a taller box that was about 15” deep. In the tall box I layered rows of tomatoes with brown packing paper separating the rows. I added a banana every two rows. In the shallower box, I arranged one layer and then added two bananas.
In a few days I checked and was pleased to see the performance of the shallow box with the two bananas.
I kept checking on my little lovelies every few days. The layered box was slower to ripen. I wasn’t a fan of removing all the tomato layers to pick out the ripe fruit and then having to re-layer the remaining green ones. I also had quite a bit of mold and rotting so I lost some tomatoes with that method. In general, this method was kind of a pain and I won’t be trying it again. The shallow box with one layer was much easier to manage and the outcome was far better.
Every few days, I would take the ripe fruits out and put the top back on. I ended up taking what was left of the green Roma’s in the tall box and adding them to the shallow box.
Overall, I was able to ripen three quarters of my harvest. The last remaining unripe tomatoes will be made into green tomato salsa.
If you have a need to ripen some green tomatoes, you can try any one of the following methods. For a few less than fully ripe, my go-to process is a warm windowsill. For a larger amount or truly green tomatoes, I’ll be using the single layer box with a banana method going forward. Be sure to check on your tomatoes every few days. Remove any that show signs of mold or rot. If using a bag or box, you can remove partially ripened fruits and finish off the ripening on a windowsill if you choose. Happy tomato ripening!
Windowsill: Best if the fruit is partially ripened. Just put them on a sill that gets sunlight.
Bag: If you have a few to ripen, put them in a paper bag, close it, and place in a warm area. A ripe banana can be added.
Box: If you have a good amount to ripen, place them in the box in one layer and close. You can add a ripe banana to speed things up.
Hanging: Pull up the entire plant, roots, and all. Shake off as much soil as possible. Hang it upside down indoors.
Until next time…
Dream Big, Plant Love, and Grow Where You’re Planted
XOXO - Laurie