Will Those Green Tomatoes Turn Red?

I read an intriguing garden column in the Redding, CA newspaper this week that suggested one way to get tomatoes to ripen outdoors now. It said: "A rule of thumb is, in the fall, take off all leaves and stems and all fruit that will not have time to develop before frost. You'll end up with skeletal vines and bare fruit, which is exactly what you want, since now all the plant's energy will go into ripening that fruit."

That might work in the mild climate areas of southern California, but here in Northern California, you're asking for a quicker end to tomato season if you do that. October-November temperatures are typically dipping down into the 40's here; in November, nighttime lows in the 30's are quite likely. When nighttime temperatures are in the 40's and below, fruit development slows to a crawl and causes other problematic issues. 

Even here in the milder Sacramento region, harvesting red tomatoes in mid-November is an iffy proposition, at best. The typical Sacramento gardener Thanksgiving trick: harvest the remaining tomatoes the day before. Immediately cut off the damaged, ugly portions. Serve the miniscule, pretty remains to Thursday's dinner guests, chopped and mixed into a salad. 

"Why yes, we can harvest tomatoes on Thanksgiving!" Please don't ask to see the whole tomatoes, though. You might lose your appetite.

As the fall weather finally begins to turn cooler, gardeners are faced with this annual dilemma: will those green tomatoes in the garden ripen?

In many areas of California, fresh garden tomatoes remain edible until late October or early November. They may not be pretty...but they are still a heckuva lot tastier than any tomato you'll find in a grocery store. By mid-November, remaining tomatoes are subject to harsher, colder, wetter weather leading to more outbreaks of blight diseases, insect infestations and bird pecking.

Are you tempted to harvest those green tomatoes, now, hoping they'll ripen up indoors? Here are a few tips.

From the horticulture department at Texas A and M:

How do you tell when a green tomato, harvested early to prevent freeze damage, will ever turn red and ripen? This can simply be done with a sharp kitchen knife. Harvest a tomato typical of the majority of green tomatoes on your plants. Look at size but pay particular attention to fruit color. Slice through the center of the tomato. Closely examine the seed within the fruit. If the seeds are covered with a clear gel which cause them to move away from the knife, then that fruit will eventually turn red and ripen. If the seeds are cut by the knife then those fruit will never properly ripen. Compare the color and size of the tested fruit when harvesting tomatoes on your plants. Most similar fruit will eventually ripen and turn red.

From Colorado State University:

Cooler September temperatures help fruit to ripen because the red tomato pigments, lycopene and carotene, are not produced above 85 degrees F; nor is lycopene below 50 degrees F.

As late September approaches, gardeners often try to extend the life of their plants by covering with cloth or plastic. Covering plants works well for nearly red tomatoes, but not as well for mature green ones. 

Though foliage may sometimes be saved, research shows that chilling injury on green fruit occurs at temperatures of 50 degrees and decay losses rise markedly on fruit exposed to 40 degrees F. Red ones well on their way to ripening tolerate colder temperatures.

Before frost hits and plants go down, pick and bring fruit indoors to ripen. Clip fruit with a very short stem piece left on but one that’s not long enough to punch holes in other tomatoes. Stems ripped out of fruit will open them to decay.
 

Eliminate (immature) green fruit, as research shows it’s more likely to spoil than ripen and never develops the flavor consumers want anyway. Mature green fruit will develop good flavor. Mature green tomatoes are well sized and have turned light green to white. If cut open, seeds are encased in gel and no empty cavity space is present.

In addition to mature green, sort and store fruit by these groups as they will ripen at similar speeds. Fruit may be "turning" with a tinge of pink color showing, "pink" with 30 to 60 percent color showing, "light red" with 60 to 90 percent color present, and others "fully red" but not soft.

http://www.floridatomatoes.org/guide.html

Store mature green tomatoes at 55 to 70 degrees F. Once fruit is fully ripe, it can be stored at 45 to 50 degrees F with a relative humidity of 90 – 95%. 

Recommended refrigerator operating temperatures of 40 degrees are certainly too cool to ripen mature green tomatoes and are colder than desired for ripe ones. Ripening enzymes are destroyed by cold temperatures whether in the garden or in a refrigerator.
 

Ripen tomatoes in well-ventilated, open cardboard boxes at room temperature checking them every few days to eliminate those that may have spoiled. Mature green tomatoes will ripen in 14 days at 70 degrees F and 28 days at 55 degrees F.
 

The folks at UC Davis recommend storing a small amount of green tomatoes in a carton box on fiber trays or paper layers.

One way to add some air circulation to the bottom, especially in warm conditions: store the tomatoes in a fruit box that contains a perforated plastic liner.

Hobby farmer Linsey Knerl offers these ideas for saving green tomatoes:

Get a rope. By pulling up your plants (root and all, if possible) and hanging them right-side up in a garage or basement, you can prolong their time on the vine for a few more weeks. Just string up some clothesline or heavy rope across one wall, and clip the tops of the plant to the rope with clothespins or binder clips. Try to avoid too much sunlight, or your tomatoes will spoil or ripen unevenly. A temperature of 60-72 degrees is ideal.
 
Go the paper route. My grandma used this trick to ripen up green ones over a period of a week or two. Pick only the green tomatoes without cracks, holes, or blight, wrap them individually in newspaper, and place them in a single layer in the bottom of a wooden crate or basket.

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And you can always cook 'em, such as with this recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes from allrecipes.com :

        4 large green tomatoes
        2 eggs
        1/2 cup milk
        1 cup all-purpose flour
        1/2 cup cornmeal
        1/2 cup bread crumbs
        2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
        1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
        1 quart vegetable oil for frying
       
    1.    Slice tomatoes 1/2 inch thick. Discard the ends.

    2.    Whisk eggs and milk together in a medium-size bowl. Scoop flour onto a plate. Mix cornmeal, bread crumbs and salt and pepper on another plate. Dip tomatoes into flour to coat. Then dip the tomatoes into milk and egg mixture. Dredge in breadcrumbs to completely coat.

    3.    In a large skillet, pour vegetable oil (enough so that there is 1/2 inch of oil in the pan) and heat over a medium heat. Place tomatoes into the frying pan in batches of 4 or 5, depending on the size of your skillet. Do not crowd the tomatoes, they should not touch each other. When the tomatoes are browned, flip and fry them on the other side. Drain them on paper towels.

FOR A HEALTHIER ALTERNATIVE...(and you knew this was coming) try this vegan green tomato recipe from the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen Blog:

Oven-Fried Green Tomatoes

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoon ground flax seed
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup quinoa flour (or other flour)
1 teaspoon cornstarch (or other starch)
1/2 teaspoon black pepper freshly ground
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large green tomatoes
Instructions

Preheat oven to 425. Spray a baking sheet lightly with canola oil or non-stick spray or line with parchment paper.
Combine the water and ground flax seeds in a blender and blend at high speed for 30 seconds. Pour into a wide, shallow bowl and allow to sit for a few minutes to thicken slightly.
In another wide bowl or plate, combine remaining ingredients (except tomatoes). Cut tomatoes into slices about 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick. Submerge a tomato slice in the flax-water, allow excess to drip off, and place slice into cornmeal mixture. Press lightly to make sure that bottom of slice is covered with cornmeal and turn to coat other side. Place on prepared baking sheet.
When all tomato slices are coated, bake for 15 minutes, or until bottoms are golden brown. Turn and bake another 15 minutes to brown other side. Remove from oven and serve immediately.
Preparation time: 25 minute(s) | Cooking time: 30 minute(s)

Number of servings (yield): 6

Nutrition (per serving): 94 calories, 12 calories from fat, 1.4g total fat, 0mg cholesterol, 214.6mg sodium, 287.3mg potassium, 18.7g carbohydrates, 2.8g fiber, 5.1g sugar, 3.2g protein.
 

Anatomy of a Fruit Tasting

Tasting fruit is easy ... if you're at an event such as Harvest Day at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center or an informal tasting at a weekend gathering at a nursery. Stand in line, munch a bit on the fruits of your choosing, then move on down the line to the next attractive morsel. You might nod your approval or smile upon biting into a tasty peach, nectarine, pluot, plum, cherry or apple. Perhaps even jot down a checkmark next to your favorite fruit on a sheet at the end of the row. But let's face it: the goal isn't so much to judge your reaction to the fruit as it is to sell you on the idea of buying and planting that delectable fruit tree next winter in your own backyard.

 It's not easy tasting fruit in a more clinical setting. OK, a fruit packing shed can't really be called a "clinic", but when Dave Wilson Nursery holds one of their annual invitation-only fruit tastings at their growing grounds in Hickman (outside Modesto), your senses go into overdrive. 

And the stakes are higher. Buying, and growing, decisions on the wholesale level ride on the reviews the new fruits get at these formal tastings. Mainly, however, the objective of these well-organized Dave Wilson Nursery fruit tastings is to educate retail nursery personnel with more fruit knowledge as well as sharpen their experiences with tree-ripened fruit. Especially, these tastings gently prod nurseries to encourage the sale and planting of the consistently best tasting varieties. Besides new introductions, many fruits that are already in the Dave Wilson Nursery catalog are included in these taste tests, to see if they are worth keeping in commerce. 

For nearly 20 years, Dave Wilson Nursery has conducted 52 formal fruit tastings, featuring over 1,700 varieties, each variety sampled and evaluated by an average of 30 tasters. There were close to 50 taste testers at their latest fruit evaluation in mid-August.

This is no leisurely munching, either. There isn't much time to ponder the subtleties of each morsel. Consider that by the the time the event begins, the tasters will have about two and a half hours to savor 33 pieces of fruit, less than five minutes per sample to judge the fruit on eight different sets of criteria:

 
• How attractive is the fruit, including the shape, skin and flesh? (1 to 5, from ugly to extraordinarily attractive).
 
• What is the physical maturity of the fruit? (very soft to very hard).
 
• How ripe is it, according to the taste? (not ripe to past its peak).
 
• How appealing is the texture, the mouth-feel? (from very disagreeable to especially appealing).
 
• Acidity (not tart, bland to too tart, sour)
 
• Sugar (lacks sweetness to too sweet)
 
• Flavor (absent or disagreeable to rich, intense, superior)
 
• And, an overall score (from 1 to 9, atrocious to best ever).

 
 

 This is quite different from professional farm tours of test orchards, where buyers from around the world are more concerned with the way the fruit looks, the ripening season (early varieties are very popular, as are varieties that can help fill the gaps during fresh fruit season), its firmness (for shipping) and the brix level (measurement of sugar).


 At the Dave Wilson fruit tastings, each participant is supplied with the basics: pencil, forms, paper towels, water (to cleanse the palate), plain crackers (to neutralize the fruit sensations left on the tongue), a knife, and fruit. Lots and lots of fruit. The Dave Wilson crew works quickly, picking up each plate after the allotted time, and immediately setting down the next fruit plate to sample.

Generally, the participants work in groups of four, where one person does the slicing and everyone in the group offers opinions of the fruits. 

When the fruits arrive, there are usually three or four of each sample on the plate. And there can be an amazing amount of variability among the three or four fruits: one might be more ripe, one might be notoriously underripe, one may have an internal defect, such as pit burn (but that's rare). Usually, the samples are fairly close in maturity and size. 

Although each group tends to make their own rules on the fly, everyone tends to settle on the best tasting fruit on the plate as the one to pass judgement upon. And no one knows what they are tasting, until the scores have been recorded for each plate of fruit. That limits the amount of bias beforehand (as in, "ewwww, I don't want to taste a commercial variety!"). Yes, they throw in a few ringers, such as samples of fruit that you might find in a supermarket. This helps everyone realize that varieties intended for the home market - both hybrids and heirlooms - do taste better!


 

 



Here are many of the fruits that we tasted, along with my thoughts. Remember, with so many tasters in the room, the same piece of fruit will score high and low, depending on the taste buds of the individual. For example, the Texas Blue Giant fig did nothing for me. Of the three pieces available, they were either sour or bland. I gave it an overall score of 2.5 (poor to mediocre). The taster sitting next to me, however, scored it much higher, a 7 (very good).

The numbered varieties listed here have yet to arrive in commerce, when they will have more descriptive names, of course. Naturally, those were some of my favorites!

29MN280 interspecific plum "Sweet, Excellent!"

32MF337 Cherry Plum "Heart Shape comes to a tasty point"

39ZD1053 Interspecific Plum  "Nice balance"

39ZD1053 Interspecific Plum in its entirety

49MA568 Pubescent Plum "Juicy, but too tart"

66ZN93 Cherry Plum "Unique flavor"

378LV332 White Nectarine "Crunchy, above average, but no "wow"

Arctic Pride commercial white nectarine "crunchy but bland"

BlackJack Fig "Nice crunch"

Champagne Peach "Very bland. A waste of 'pretty'. "

Dapple Dandy Pluot "pleasing taste, nice red flesh"

Excel Fig "mushy"

Fay Elberta Peach "Bland, watery, smoky flavor"

Flame Kissed Nectarine "Not ripe. Repulsive birdfood."

Flavor Grenade Pluot "not fully ripe"

Flavor Queen commercial pluot "Picked too soon"

Fortune Plum  "Big, with above average flavor"

Friar Plum "Disappointingly mild"

Honey Diva commercial nectarine "Crunchy, but bland"

Hosui Asian Pear "Nice balance of sweet and tart"

JH Hale Peach "Ugly pit area, bland"

Royal Giant Nectarine "Mediocre"

SauZee Lady Flat Peach "mediocre but sweet"

Snow King Peach "bland"

Superior Plum "nice orange flesh, but sour taste"

Texas Blue Giant Fig "sour to bland"

Tra-Zee Yellow Peach  "Tasty, not syrupy"

Yakumo Asian Pear "watery, bland"

Yukon King subacid commercial peach "Watery, too mild"

ZeeGlow Nectarine "Disappointing"

Zephyr Nectarine "Supermarket quality"

ZIM600 interspecific plum/peach "Very pleasing balance"

ZIM600 interspecific plum/peach "Very pleasing balance"

And if you attend three or more of Dave Wilson Nursery's official taste testings, you get one of these! (which can lead to some interesting conversations with strangers if worn in public)