Harvesting and Ripening Tomatoes

Occasionally when I pick my garden tomatoes I think of my friend who gardens in Bozeman, Montana. She counts it a good year when she can harvest tomatoes in August. Some years, a frost takes them early.

I remember my early garden days in Massachusetts when the vagaries of the the first frost sent me into action. Initially, there was overnight draping with sheets to protect the plants. That could be late September. Other years, tomatoes could persist into well into October in my USDA Zone 5b garden. But eventually, a hard frost would be predicted which meant different strategies.

One year I harvested a bushel of green tomatoes so I scurried to find recipes. The hands down favorite was green tomato mincemeat which I froze in quart containers. If the plants had fruit with hints of pink, we deemed them candidates for the cellar. I wrapped the best ones in newspaper and carefully stored them. We uprooted some plants, shook off the soil and hung them upside down in the cellar.

The yield was variable but some years we had ripe tomatoes at Christmas. They were definitely better than what was available in local stores.

I harvest most of my tomatoes one or two days “early,” as the above photos show. Two reasons prompt this practice. Some years, rodents have been a neighborhood problem and they seem to know just when the tomatoes are ripe. Snatching them from the vine early deprives them of a nocturnal meal.

The second reason relates to growing tomatoes in the fog belt. Some years it is a race for all the tomatoes to ripen before most of the leaves depart due to various blights.

I was heartened to read a report from Kansas State Research and Extension that a tomato does not have to remain on the vine until completely ripe to develop that wonderful tomato flavor.

Alice Waters (in “Chez Panisse Vegetables”) suggests ripening indoors, picking when the shift from orange to red begins, reportedly to maximize sugar and acid content.

So all of this intro is to suggest you read a post by one of my favorite garden bloggers at A Way to Garden. She gardens in New York’s Hudson Valley and knows about critters who like to take their share and early frosts.

There’s more than one way to ripen a tomato

In her piece, she describes the process of ripening, how to hasten it in the garden and when to give up and go indoors. She suggests various methods to store and ripen tomatoes and provides recipes for all shades of tomatoes—including one for Green Tomato and Apple Mincemeat.

Though your first frost may be month away, check these other resources:

How To Ripen Green Tomatoes Off The Vine: 5 Helpful Methods
The Best Ways to Ripen Green Tomatoes