Ep 133 Ripening Fall Tomato Hand-me-Downs
Sat, Nov 04, 2023 5:33PM • 10:21
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
tomatoes, ripen, garden, year, chipmunks, green tomatoes, green, porch, seeds, bounty, left, plants, enjoy, picking, taste, cherry tomatoes, skin, variety, dilemmas, mary stone, garden, nature, inspiration
SPEAKERS
Mary Stone
Mary Stone 00:00
Hello fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary Stone and welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights and Discoveries. It's not only about gardens, it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.
Mary Stone 00:26
Hello there, it's Mary Stone on the screen porch and it is very chilly. The first frost of the season is on its way and I had to scramble and get all the plants off the porch. All the house plants are now back inside, which always kind of brings me into a melancholy mode. Although I do like the change of seasons, I spend time on the porch all year round. So, it just looks kind of naked out here right now. But then of course the house will be full of those green lovelies.
Mary Stone 00:53
I want to thank those who reached back about last week's chat about Shagbark Hickories and Mast Years. Nutty Mast Years we should say Right? So many of us have been noticing that it feels like walking on marbles or golf balls amongst our nutty trees, a bountiful year. Critters are so happy. I also want to thank you for listening each week, Alex Bartling, who produces our podcast sent an alert he received from Buzzsprouts, the platform that hosts our show, that we have 10,000 downloads. I am so excited about that. And that's because of all of you and I'm just so grateful. Our community is growing. So wonderful to have you part of it. Really really. Anyway, a bountiful year brings a story about receiving Fall Tomato Hand-me-Downs I look forward to sharing and it starts like this.
Mary Stone 01:49
Hello fellow listeners and readers. While wrapping up the fall planting season, providing garden tweaks for a long-standing client become friend, I was delighted to receive veggie garden hand me downs. Ed in Bridgewater, New Jersey tidied up his pots that were filled with green tomatoes. Some plants were still in bloom. I love tomato plants woodsy, earthy smell and adore the more compact varieties planted amongst perennials such as echinacea and salvia.
Mary Stone 02:19
As Ed was cutting them down the smell heightened the cuttings went to the compost pile and Ed gave me most of the green tomatoes. They're almost heart shaped with a teardrop point at the end. What kind of tomatoes are they? I asked.
Mary Stone 02:34
"I'm not sure, a friend brought back seeds from Sicily. I've harvested seeds for the last 10 years from the tomatoes and planted them the next year. The funny thing is the fruit has gotten a bit bigger each year. Some are half dollar size and others are still the original quarter sized about the size of cherry tomatoes. They're best in cooking and sauces," Ed explained. During the summer over-abundance he tosses them into the freezer and bags, skin at all, and uses them all winter long. "I just take them out of the bag and toss them in whenever I make." Nifty idea.
Mary Stone 03:10
I told the story of my previous cherry tomato attempts in pots hindered by the resident chipmunk who took one bite out of each just before they ripened leaving them littering the ground.
Mary Stone 03:22
So anyway, I have to go back in time and read bits of this column titled Avoid Tomato Carnage Ripen Indoors. This is a snippet of what I shared with Ed. I hope it makes you laugh.
Mary Stone 03:36
On August 7, this would be in 2014 I proudly announced happy first tomato complete with a cute little picture of the guy on my windowsill. I was excited chipmunks didn't get the first bite the fate of all my tomato attempts in years past. I displayed my single bounty for a few days before I indulged in its fantastic flavor. Please don't laugh. Since then, no other tomato has come to ripen. Thanks to the rock wall residents who have left the remnants of three or more each morning. As if to say that's what you get for coveting the one ripe tomato, we left for you. The truth is if they ate the whole darn thing, I'd be less upset, the slaughter would have been somewhat hidden. At least the food isn't wasted.
Mary Stone 04:18
Tomatoes are one of the only vegetables, and that's because they are technically a fruit that you can pick before they wholly ripen. Picking tomatoes early can prevent splitting or bruising and allows you to control the ripening process. So after the tomatoes ill fate i preempted the carnage by taking the ripening indoors. And here's how.
Mary Stone 04:40
Tomatoes can't ripen unless they reach their full size known as the mature green stage when they turn a lighter green and a gel like substance is in the inside. At this stage two growth hormones change and cause the production of ethylene gas which in turn ages the cells resulting in ripening. There's a fine line between picking tomatoes at the mature green stage and picking too early. The best way to tell is to sacrifice one just when it turns a lighter green to see if the gel like substance is inside. They are less flavorful if picked before, meaning they taste like cardboard, such as those customarily bought in the offseason at the supermarket. Don't you find that true when you buy tomatoes in the winter, they just don't taste right. They taste bland or cardboard-ish.
Mary Stone 05:27
Place your tomatoes out of direct sunlight and they'll reach peak ripeness in seven to 10 days. Or if you wish to ripen faster. Wrap it in newsprint or brown paper bag to contain the ethylene gas. Store tomatoes at 55 to 70 degrees cooler if you wish to slow the ripening, and regularly check for ripeness. Enjoy the bounty before the chipmunks do or the first heavy frost snags them. And at the same time, avoid skin cracks, green shoulders and stretch marks. Lucky tomato.
Mary Stone 06:02
Anyway, Ed's generous bounty in on a kitchen towel on the counter. A few have chomped marks that scarred over. It's polite of Ed's chipmunks to at least leave them on the vine where they could heal and continue to grow. Those that ripen too fast to use, we'll go into the freezer using Ed's skin and all technique because as you probably know, storing fresh tomatoes in the refrigerator makes them mealy and ruins the flavor.
Mary Stone 06:28
Perhaps those that won't ripen could be made into fried green tomatoes, but 500 calories a serving for one large corn meal bread crumb and flour encased fried tomato may be a deterrent versus 50 calories for a fresh one. Instead, I may gift them to our resident chipmunks but far away from the garden. Garden Dilemmas, AskMaryStone.com.
Mary Stone 06:52
So I took my advice yesterday and I harvested all the green tomatoes. Actually, not all of them, I saved plenty for the wildlife to enjoy. So tomorrow I will likely take the deer netting down and just open up the feeding station for the critters to enjoy. So, I brought them all indoors. And I have to say I have had some very, let's call them unattractive tomatoes this season. I had not remembered that if you harvest them when they're in that mature green stage, you can improve the beauty of them because they don't get those cracked shoulders and so forth. But more than that, for some reason, mine didn't ripen red, they kind of ripened partially green and red. And I brought them indoors and I'd let them finish ripening, but the skin never really got red through the whole tomato. But the good thing is that I got to enjoy them because Curt thought they didn't look right. But you know, looks are in the eye of the beholder. They tasted delicious, which is a beautiful thing.
Mary Stone 07:54
So this is year three of my vegetable garden. And one of the really neat things that has happened in the last two years is that some of the overripe tomatoes that fell to the ground re-seeded. And so I've had new tomato plants volunteer in the garden and the variety that actually ripens during the growing season so you don't have to start the seeds indoors. In other words, those volunteer seeds went right into ripe cherry tomatoes. I wish I could tell you the variety, but it's long forgotten, just like the tomato carnage I used to endure. Well. Maybe not.
Mary Stone 08:35
I have to tell you a little side note here. When I arrived Dolce whose Ed's kindhearted lab, welcomed me. She was sitting under the Kousa dogwood, and I had interrupted her snack of the berries dropped from the tree.
Mary Stone 08:47
"It's funny how she takes off the stem and spits out the seeds and only eats the ones from our tree. Though there are many around the neighborhood she comes across on our walks and thought they were crab apples." Ed said.
Mary Stone 08:59
Their berries are too large for many birds. So, some naturalists don't favor Kousa Dogwoods. It's the first time I heard of a dog eating them. Humans do too. They say they taste like a combo of pumpkin and mango. But as Dolce discovered that plentiful seeds may get in the way. Anyway, thanks so much for coming by. I always enjoy our time together, and I hope you have as well and if so, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share the podcast with a friend or two to join us each week. This one's a milestone right 10,000 downloads and growing. Thanks to all of you. I so appreciate it. And I look forward to hearing from more of you about your garden stories or nature stories, and how nature and gardens help heal and grow your life. Thanks again. See you next time on the screen porch.
Mary Stone 09:51
You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden Dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag Mary Elaine Stone.
Mary Stone 10:00
Garden Dilemmas, Delights and Discoveries as produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch. And always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life, have a great day.
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