(NOT) Fried Green Tomatoes

Last year was the first time we had tried to grow some tomato plants in the front flower bed. It was really a “nothing ventured/nothing gained” proposition. They really did quite well.

The most pleasant surprise of all happened at the end of the season – about this time of year. The plants had survived and thrived well into the fall season and we were approaching the first hard freeze of the year. Having not really done any research into what our options were but knowing we were about to lose them, we pulled up the plants and harvested any remaining green tomatoes.

We’re not huge fans of the traditional ‘fried green tomatoes’ dish, so we just decided to put them out on our kitchen table – which gets tons of direct sunlight through the sliding glass door out on to the screened-in porch -  and just see what would develop.

At first, nothing happened. Then, bit by bit, the tomatoes started to ripen. Before long, we saw the greens turn to orange and then to red. Our 2010 experiment was a rousing success. Literally, we had fresh, ripe tomatoes through Thanksgiving last year.

This season looks to be a repeat.

Hoping to boost our success, I went online and found a couple suggestions about how to speed along the ripening process this time of year. Evidentally, it’s quite common to have healthy tomato plants this time of year but hard to get the tomatoes to turn because of the lack of warmth and direct sunlight.

One of the authors on one of the ‘how to’ websites I discovered suggested wrapping the tomatoes in newspaper and finding a good spot to place them in a box. I noticed we have a great vegetable crate-type box from one of Lisa’s ‘stock up’ trips to the grocery store. So, that was the perfect container for me to use to try to do this method.

Being frequent newspaper consumers, there was no lack of material to use for wrapping. I was willing to do the newspaper trick because I notice the few large green tomatoes sitting on the kitchen table just aren’t ripening as quickly as I had remembered from last year. So, I plucked some of the larger fruit from the vines and began the task.

The first candidate got a page from the sports section (naturally, I always start with sports). Then, there were a couple store circulars, followed by the front page. You get the idea. Pretty soon, I had filled the box with one level of tomatoes. I didn’t go far beyond that for two reasons. First, I had pretty much exhausted the supply of ‘mature-size’ green tomatoes. Secondly, the article I read suggested that you not go deeper than two levels.

The article suggested unwrapping the tomatoes from time to time to check their progress. I will do that.

If we had fresh, ripe tomatoes through Thanksgiving last year, maybe our goal could be to stretch it out until mid-December? Or maybe we’d even be fortunate enough to be enjoying them at Christmas?

Hey, why not? Sounds like a good goal to me.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

JG

UPDATE – About a week after my ‘experiment’ to wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper, I unwrapped them and checked on them. One had totally turned bad, so I chucked it into the woods. Four were turning nicely, so I brought them upstairs. A few others were beginning to ripen, so I re-wrapped them. Ditto for the others that were still very green.

(Source: gardening.about.com)

Originally posted 10/8/2011