This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Colder weather

Cheryl wrote:-

> The colder weather is arriving very quickly here in Zone 5.  I'm
wondering
> if there's anything I can do for my tomatoes.  I have been pinching off
> new flowers and I started trimming off old leaves but I still have a
large
> number of green tomatoes.  Will they ripen even if it's cooler at night?
Will
> they ripen if I pick them and put them in a sunny window?

Hi Cheryl

This is an annual problem for folk who live in Zones where the warm tomato
ripening weather is never long enough. It depends on what you mean by
"cooler at night", so long as there is no frost you will be OK, the
tomatoes will ripen slowly though the plants will eventually die off.
Otherwise there are a couple of things you can do.

1. If you have glass cloches or plastic tunnels you can carefully remove
the tomato vine from its supporting canes and lay the plant down on the
ground on dry straw. Place the cloches or plastic tunnels over the plants
and leave the tomatoes to ripen. This OK so long as the temperatures do not
drop too low. If frost penetrates the covering the tomatoes will be spoilt.

2. You can pick the tomatoes green and place them in a paper bag with a
RIPE tomato or any ripe fruit. Ripe fruit gives of a gas called ethylene
which helps ripen other green fruit. If you place them on a sunny
windowsill it is unlikely that they would ripen very well as the  gas from
the ripe fruit would dissipate. You do need some way of containing the gas,
but you also want to let the fruit breath else they will rot. So do use a
paper bag not a plastic one. Some people put their tomatoes in a wooden
drawer and just remove ripe ones as they are ready.

Last year I had several pounds of green tomatoes. I placed them in brown
paper bags and left them in a cool room with a ripe tomato in each bag. The
ripe tomato can be removed once it has "taught" some others what to do and
so you get a succession of gradually ripening tomatoes. I had fresh
tomatoes
until about November last year doing this.
However, there is one slight disadvantage. You do not get the fresh sweet
tomato taste doing it this way. Tomatoes only develop their sweet flavour
if they ripen "on the vine". But on the other hand you do have your own
tomatoes and they are still better than the tasteless pink balls on sale in
the shops.

Regards
Stephen
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Stephen Griffiths
Barfield Allotment Association
Whetstone, London. England.
stephen.griffiths@dial.pipex.com.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

***************************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send to: listserv@umslvma.umsl.edu
the body message: unsubscribe sqft
See http://www.umsl.edu/~silvest/garden/sqft.html for archive, FAQ and more.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index