Tag Archives: ripening-tomatoes

Ripening Green Tomatoes

As my gardening season comes to an end, I still have many green tomatoes on my plants. Here is just a small bag of green tomatoes I harvested off of two plants. I needed to harvest the tomatoes on these plants as they were in frost danger. You can always cover your tomato plants at night to protect them from frost but the end of my warm season is here and it was time to just pick the green tomatoes.
Harvested Green Tomatoes

I wrote a post a few years ago with a great tip on ripening green tomatoes. You can read that post here. If you don’t have a ripe banana to place inside your brown paper bag, don’t worry. The green tomatoes will ripen over time inside a closed brown paper bag. You can also wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and then place them inside the paper bag. This is another good way to ripen green tomatoes and store them for future use. You can read more about storing green tomatoes here.

If nothing else, place the green tomatoes on a sunny, inside window ledge and they will also ripen over time. But if you have lots of green tomatoes, you might try my useful idea about storage of the tomatoes. It is very nice to have red home-grown tomatoes into November from the brown bag storage idea.

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Harvest of Green Tomatoes Ripen

Here is my final harvest of green tomatoes that were picked October 19, 2014. I picked all my green tomatoes and kept them after my garden was pulled before the frost hit. I had a whole bag of green tomatoes that I wrapped in newspaper and stored in a large brown paper bag in my basement. I have used this process in the past and you can read the original storing green tomatoes post which works excellent for storing and ripening all those green tomatoes you have at the end of your gardening season.

Ripened Green Tomatoes

You just keep checking the tomatoes and pull them out as they ripen from the storage brown bag. This is the last of my tomatoes and as you can see, just one is still yellow. Continue Reading →

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Green Tomatoes Stored 5 Months

Last fall I had lots of green tomatoes and set out to save them again as I did last year. I just wanted to share the results after 5 months in storage. These are the last of my green tomatoes from last October.

Here is the blog post I wrote about storing tomatoes in newspaper for fall and winter use. This method not only stores the tomatoes but also allows them to ripen over time. Just check the tomatoes periodically and use them as needed.

As you can see the tomatoes are red and still very usable. I cut a few up this morning and cooked them Continue Reading →

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Storing Tomatoes in Newspaper

At the end of the gardening season last year I had many green tomatoes. I wrapped them in pieces of newspaper and stored them in a brown paper bag in my basement. I kept them in the dark and they not only ripened over the winter but stored very well.

Here are a few of the last tomatoes that I just unwrapped today. They have been stored in the newspaper for 4 months. As you can see they look pretty good. Some of the skins are a bit wrinkled but these tomatoes tasted great in my green salad today.

Storing Details:
Wrap only about 2 green tomatoes in each piece of newspaper loosely. Place each wrapped newspaper bundle in a brown paper bag. I was able to put quite a few bundles of wrapped tomatoes in the paper bag. Close the bag and keep it in the dark. Storing in the basement worked well for me.

Check the tomatoes in a few weeks or as needed. Remove the red ripened tomatoes. Re-wrap the green tomatoes and put them back into the brown paper bag until ripe or when you need a tomato.

Conclusion:
Green tomatoes can be saved, stored, and ripened over the winter for future use.

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Ripening Green Tomatoes

If you have green tomatoes left over in your garden, here is a great tip on how to ripen them and turn them red. Pick the green tomatoes and place them inside a paper bag along with a ripe banana. Apparently the ripe banana gives off a gas that helps ripen the green tomatoes naturally.

Here is a photo of a few tomatoes that I placed inside the bag that were very green. After just 5 days with the ripe banana they have ripened up nicely.

Instructions:
Place green tomatoes for ripening inside a paper bag. I used a small lunch sack and then added a ripe banana. Close the bag and check it in a few days. If the tomatoes aren’t ripe yet, close the bag and check it again in a few more days. Tomatoes should be fully ripened within 7 days.

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