Storing Green Tomatoes

How to Store and Ripen Green Tomatoes

If it’s going to frost badly enough that your tomatoes will not make it, you can pull the whole tomato plant up by the roots.

Hang it upside down by the roots in the mudroom or garage (if it won’t freeze in there, too). The tomatoes will continue to ripen slowly just hanging there. You can also pull the tomatoes off at your leisure and place in buckets checking every day or so to pull out the ripening ones, or place in open short cardboard boxes under the bed or some similar place, again checking for ripening ones.

The trick is to pull the ripe ones out and get them away from the green ones as soon as possible. Using this method, I have had green tomatoes ripen over a month after I pulled the plants out of the garden. A few smaller ones ripened two months later 🙂 Sure extends the tomato season! 🙂 Marci

 

Thanks for the tip, Marci! I don’t pull up the entire plant. I just pick the tomatoes, lay them on a tray and cover with newspaper. I had tomatoes for almost a month after that.( See the tip below.)
Tawra

 

From: Marjie B.
Here is a tip for ripening green tomatoes:

I hate clutter, so unless there are only a few tomatoes left when the frost comes, having green tomatoes ripening on my counter would drive me nuts! You can ripen your green tomatoes by layering them in a cardboard box with sections of newspapers sandwiched between the layers.

Check them every few days and remove the red ones.