Working on green tomatoes

tomatoe,vegetable,freshAfter a season of dedicated garden and growing a beautiful tomato plant, it can be disheartening to find that not all of our tomatoes became ripe. The good news is that you don't necessarily need to toss out all those green tomatoes. There are several methods you can employ to turn your green tomatoes into plump, red, ripe tomatoes. Although there are many methods, this article will describe the cardboard box method. It's a good method that can be used for a large number of unripened tomatoes, or even for one or two.

1. Prepare the tomatoes

It's important to bring your tomatoes inside before the first frost. Make sure you remove all stems and leaves from the tomatoes. If the tomato is still rock hard, then it is likely that it will never ripen - it will only rot. You definitely don't want rotten tomatoes, so either toss those out or use them in a green tomato recipe. Wrap each tomato in a piece of tissue paper or newspaper.

2. Prepare the box

You should line the bottom of the box with something soft so that the tomatoes don't bruise. You might use foam, but newspaper works quite well for this purpose.

3. Place the tomatoes

Carefully place the tomatoes in the cardboard box arranged in neat rows. You can put another layer of newspaper on top of the bottom layer, and add a second layer of tomatoes if you need room. Three layers will often bruise the bottom layer, so if you run out of room you should probably start with another box.

4. Ethylene

Ethylene is an organic hormone which will encourage your tomatoes to ripen. They often release it themselves, and if you have several tomatoes packed together they will encourage each other to ripen. However, you can also speed along this process by introducing a banana or an apple into the box.

5. Store the Box

The proper place from the box is in a cool room away from light. A bit of humidity is optimal.

6. Check every day

You need to check on your tomatoes at least once per day. Make sure that none of them have begun to rot. If one has, you should throw it out before it contaminates the others. Once your tomatoes are a bright red color, you can take them out of the box and enjoy.

Unfortunately, tomatoes don't always ripen according to our timetable. However, with a little patience you'll soon get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

If your tomatoes become rotten, simply throw them into your waste bin. Glad trash bags are also good for securing rotten tomatoes.