{"id":7120,"date":"2015-10-07T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T16:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=7120"},"modified":"2015-09-10T16:37:54","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T20:37:54","slug":"ripening-tomatoes-off-the-vine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2015\/10\/07\/ripening-tomatoes-off-the-vine\/","title":{"rendered":"Ripening Tomatoes Off The Vine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_7121\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Tomato-Greenhouse-Production-9.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7121\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7121\" src=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Tomato-Greenhouse-Production-9-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"Ripening Tomatoes on the vine\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Tomato-Greenhouse-Production-9-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Tomato-Greenhouse-Production-9-1024x687.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-7121\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ripening Tomatoes on the vine<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The threat of freezing temperatures in the fall has gardeners scrambling to harvest\u00a0all green tomatoes that may be\u00a0a few weeks away from regular harvest. You may opt to prepare\u00a0fried green tomatoes or\u00a0to ripen the fruits indoors,\u00a0still a tastier alternative to store-bought tomatoes.<\/p>\n<p>Pick green tomatoes that\u00a0show a\u00a0tinge\u00a0of color at the blossom (bottom)\u00a0end and feel a little softer than\u00a0hard dark green fruits.<b>\u00a0 <\/b>Remove\u00a0twigs, stems, leaves etc. that could rub\u00a0or damage the skin during storage.<\/p>\n<p>Inspect all\u00a0fruits for decay or mold and immediately discard all bad ones.\u00a0The cooler the storage area for the tomatoes, the longer the ripening process will take.<\/p>\n<p>Tomatoes ripen naturally on the kitchen\u00a0countertop away from direct sunlight and extremes of heat and cold;\u00a0set\u00a0fruits on their shoulders rather than on their blossom ends. Another popular\u00a0technique is\u00a0to ripen green tomatoes in a plastic or paper bag, or wrap each in newspaper and store in an enclosed plastic or cardboard box.\u00a0Allow 7-14 days for ripening\u00a0at home room temperature. Some long-keeping tomato varieties may take longer.<\/p>\n<p>To speed the ripening process, add slices of ripe apples or bananas; ripened fruits\u00a0naturally release ethylene gas.\u00a0Skin color (red, pink, purple or yellow) changes occur several days earlier by this method.\u00a0Peek inside the\u00a0container every 2-3 days. Trucking companies often utilize ethylene gas to ripen early-harvested tomatoes, bananas, pears and other\u00a0orchard grown fruits en route to the supermarket.<\/p>\n<p>Green tomatoes can be fried, as in \u201cfried green tomatoes&#8221;, or pickled, made into salsa, green tomato jam, soups, green ketchup, and added to pasta sauces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The threat of freezing temperatures in the fall has gardeners scrambling to harvest\u00a0all green tomatoes that may be\u00a0a few weeks away from regular harvest. You may opt to prepare\u00a0fried green tomatoes or\u00a0to ripen the fruits indoors,\u00a0still a tastier alternative to store-bought tomatoes. Pick green tomatoes that\u00a0show a\u00a0tinge\u00a0of color at the blossom (bottom)\u00a0end and feel a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1144,599,1194,630,870],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7120\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}