How to Handle Those Green Tomatoes

With cooler temperatures and decreased daylength in our northern hemisphere, gardeners may have an abundance of green, unripened tomatoes this fall. Courtesy: Kristine Lang

With cooler temperatures and decreased daylength in our northern hemisphere, gardeners may have an abundance of green, unripened tomatoes this fall. Green tomatoes do not need to go straight to the compost, for they can have many uses! Green tomatoes are good pickled or even in a green tomato pie (recipes below). If these recipes don’t appeal to you, they can easily be ripened indoors with some patience.

First, keep an eye on the weather to know when your first frost will happen, as tomatoes are very sensitive to cold temperatures. When a frost is forecasted, head out to the garden and harvest as many green tomatoes as you’d like to use (only save non-diseased fruit). While it’s a personal choice, some prefer to preserve their small green tomatoes (cherry and grape varieties) and allow the larger ones to ripen indoors.

How to Ripen Green Tomatoes

Picked green tomatoes can be ripened inside the home or in a garage or basement. Courtesy: Kristine Lang

There are two methods that can be used to ripen green tomatoes indoors. Neither of these methods involve the refrigerator, as red color will not develop at less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, do not place the fruit in a sunny window; this will shorten shelf life, and light is not necessary for ripening.

The flavor of the tomatoes won’t be quite as good if they had ripened outdoors, but they will still taste better than most of what you can buy at the grocery store, and this method can increase your supply of garden tomatoes for several weeks into the fall.

• Store them in newspaper in a box.
  Picked fruit can be ripened inside the home or in a garage or basement. Place the fruit stem-side down on a layer of newspaper in a cool location. Cover with another layer of paper on top, as this helps retain some humidity to prevent shriveling of the fruit if conditions are too dry. Do not stack more than 3 layers of fruit, and do not place them touching each other. Adding 1 to2 red tomatoes will increase the amount of ethylene around the green tomatoes; this is the plant hormone that encourages and speeds up ripening. Store at about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Tomatoes treated in this manner may ripen faster than they would outdoors during cool weather. It’s a good idea to check the fruit on a regular basis and discard any rotting ones before they contaminate other fruit.

• Pull up the whole plant and hang it upside down.
  Harvest the entire plant, including the roots. Shake off as much soil as possible and hang it upside down in a cool area that gets indirect light and wait for the tomatoes to ripen.

Preserving and Eating Green Tomatoes

If you’d like to try your hand at green tomato preservation, here are two recipes to try.