ripening green tomatoes

Summer was short in Montana this year. We had a bit of early summer in April, then it got colder again. I still ended up with lots of tomatoes — Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry, Purple Bumble Bee, Solar Flair, and Black Beauty. Few made it beyond green stage, though, before the first frost hit.

green_tomatoes

I made the mistake of trying to ripen the first green few on a sunny windowsill. They did turn color. The ripe flesh was grainy and mushy, though, and not good to eat.

For the rest I tried putting them in a cardboard box in the (relatively) chilly shop. The shop stays between 55F and 60F this time of year, which turns out to be perfect for slow-ripening tomatoes.

Once the tomatoes start to get a little color on them, I move them to the sunny windowsill. That did the trick.

ripening_tomatoes

The resulting tomatoes are close to the taste of those naturally ripened outdoors in the summer sun. Much better than ripening indoors on the windowsill.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

three × 5 =

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

© 2023 Planet B Gardens
%d bloggers like this: