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Re: green tomatoes

The upside-down hanging routine that Jim Greene asked about and Karen said
works has been mentioned as well in several books I've read over the years.
But it does kind of require you to have a coolish, darkish basement (i.e., a
fair amount of space) since you're dealing with pretty much the entire vine,
not just the fruits.

Jim's original query concerned tomato 'Sweet 100,' a teeny cherry hybrid.
I'm not certain the following advice applies to cherry tomatoes, but it
absolutely works for regular-size toms.

When frost nears at the end of the gardening season and you're looking at
loads of green tomatoes still on your vines, turn each one upside down in
your hand.  Some will be uniformly green on the bottom.  Others will exhibit
a whitish "star" radiating out from the center of the bottom.

This whitish star is the sure marker that that individual fruit WILL ripen
indoors during storage, turn red, and give you tomato joys after the snow
flies.  No star?  No ripen.  Green rock forever.

So no need to waste your newspaper/box system on goners.  Pick just the
fruits that have gone far enough in their on-vine development to ripen the
last bits indoors.  This system works even if the individual fruit is
showing absolutely no signs of red color anywhere.

--Janet
[beeg tomato eater]
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Janet Wintermute             jwintermute@ids2.idsonline.com
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