Ripening tomatoes at home. From green to red: how to speed up the ripening process of tomatoes in effective ways. How to slow down the ripening of tomatoes at home

Tomatoes, without having time to ripen on the bushes, are able to do this during storage. You just need to collect them on time and properly place them for ripening. Since in many regions up to half of the crop does not have time to ripen during the warm period, this property is actively used by picking green fruits already in August, when humidity rises and temperature drops.

How to ripen tomatoes at home

There are a number of ways to ripen tomatoes. Each gardener chooses the optimal one, based on his capabilities and desires: tomatoes ripen best at a temperature of about 15 o C, but at higher temperatures the process goes faster. True, acceleration somewhat worsens the taste of the product. It is better if the air humidity is maintained at 70–80%.

When to pick tomatoes for ripening

According to the degree of ripeness of tomatoes, they are distinguished:

Blazing tomatoes ripen in any conditions and quite quickly: a maximum of a week. Not so with the green ones. Even if the weather has irreversibly deteriorated and the harvest has to be completely harvested, only those specimens that have reached the required size can be left for ripening, and their next stage is ripening. They have seeds of normal size on the cut.

Small tomatoes most likely will not ripen; they can be chopped and overcooked: they are quite suitable as an additive to borscht and rassolniks.

Do not place sick or damaged fruits for ripening: they will quickly rot. The same applies to those caught even in mild frosts. You cannot wait for frost: all tomatoes are picked when night temperatures drop to 5 o C. As for greenhouses, where, as a rule, more delicate varieties are grown, the full harvest is carried out when the temperature drops to 8 o C.

Methods for ripening tomatoes

Each owner has his own favorite techniques, but the easiest way is the traditional one.

Normal ripening

The easiest way is to lay out green tomatoes in a room with room temperature and high humidity, on any shelves in layers no thicker than 20 cm. You can use low boxes, baskets, boxes with “breathable” walls. Every few days, the tomatoes are sorted: damaged ones are removed and ripe ones are taken for consumption. Sometimes tomatoes are layered with newspapers or sawdust.

If there is enough space in the house, it is better to arrange the tomatoes in one row: this makes them easier to observe

Previously, I laid tomatoes on the floor in one row, and throughout September it was impossible to walk around the apartment. Now I just leave them in basins, or even buckets, in small layers, and if they were collected in bad weather, I even wash them first and dry them slightly.

If rapid ripening is not required, it is better to sort the tomatoes by degree of ripeness, or even size, before placing them. There is no need to put green tomatoes in the refrigerator: they will not ripen there. As for light, the issue is controversial: many believe that it is better to ripen tomatoes in the dark, but, as practice shows, the process depends little on the presence of light.

Ripening "in a stack"

If there are a lot of green tomatoes left on the bushes and there is a relatively warm, spacious room, you don’t have to pick the fruits from the bushes. On the contrary, they cut the bushes close to the ground and stack them in a small stack (up to half a meter high) with the tops towards the middle.

If there is no room, the stack can be organized outside, insulating it with straw or non-woven covering materials.

If the shelter allows you to maintain a temperature inside the stack of about 15 o C, in a month all the tomatoes will ripen, but weekly, in warm weather, an inspection must be carried out.

Ripening on the bushes

If there is a warm, ventilated barn, dig up the bushes, shake off the soil from the roots and hang them upside down. Neighboring bushes should not be close to each other. Since the plant does not completely die in this case, even a slight growth of fruits is possible.

On the bushes, tomatoes can not only ripen, but also grow slightly due to the outflow of nutrients from the roots

If there are few bushes, they can be buried in the ground in some warm room; in such a situation they will behave almost like transplanted ones.

How to speed up maturation

There are several ways to speed up the ripening process of harvested fruits:

temperature increase to 28–30 o C;
use of light (sunny windowsill);
covering green tomatoes with red cloth;
adding several ripe ones to the green tomatoes;
using apples or bananas: several fruits will speed up ripening by releasing ethylene.

How to slow down maturation

If there are a lot of tomatoes, but you want to extend the vegetable season, you should:

choose appropriate varieties;
store green tomatoes in the dark at a temperature no higher than 12 o C, and blanched tomatoes - no higher than 6 o C;
often sort, removing from the total mass those that are even slightly pink.

Using these techniques allows you to enjoy fresh fruits until November.

Unfortunately, in most of the country, not all tomatoes have time to ripen in the garden beds. But, fortunately, green fruits ripen successfully at home, and this is not at all difficult to achieve.

Depending on climate and weather conditions, up to 60% of tomatoes may be unripe. These tomatoes are sent for ripening. We will tell you how to do it correctly to get as many ripe fruits as possible.

If cool and rainy weather prevails in August, it is better not to wait for the tomatoes to ripen on the bush: with high humidity, late blight can destroy them. To save the harvest, green tomatoes need to be collected and ripened.

When to pick tomatoes for ripening
Based on color, there are 3 stages of tomato ripeness:

1.Green.
2.Blange. During this period, tomatoes also often turn light green or yellowish-brown.
3.Pink, red or yellow (depending on the variety). These tomatoes are considered ripe.
It is important to know exactly when to pick green tomatoes. If the fruits are still green, but have already reached the size corresponding to the variety, and fully developed seeds are visible on the cut, then such tomatoes can be sent for ripening. Small and poorly developed fruits should be left on the plant: at home they will not ripen on their own.

Regardless of the degree of ripeness, all diseased tomatoes are not left to ripen. They are destroyed so that the disease does not spread to healthy fruits.

Tomatoes can be harvested while still green, but they must be of normal size for the variety.

So, both green and blue fruits can ripen at home. But how to determine the time when it is time to pick tomatoes for ripening?

The entire crop must be removed from the bushes before the air temperature at night drops below 5°C. In the middle zone this usually happens in the second half of August. Please note: frozen tomatoes do not store well and run the risk of disease.

When to pick tomatoes in a greenhouse for ripening
All tomatoes grown in greenhouses are recommended to be picked from the bush slightly unripe (light brown). This will allow the remaining green tomatoes to ripen faster.

The exact time when you need to pick tomatoes for ripening depends on the period of planting the seedlings and the variety of vegetable. As a rule, the first harvest of greenhouse tomatoes is harvested in early June, and the fruits of late-ripening varieties are removed from the bush at the end of September. But you need to take weather conditions into account.

In greenhouses, more finicky tomatoes that are afraid of the cold are most often grown. Therefore, as soon as the temperature in the protected ground is below 9 ° C, ripening of tomatoes is carried out at home

If it gets cold in the greenhouse in the fall, harvest the entire tomato crop.

How to pick tomatoes correctly
Tomatoes are removed from the bush as they ripen, usually every 3-5 days. At the same time, it is important to prevent the fruits from overripening, since in this form it will not be possible to preserve the collected tomatoes for a long time (they are immediately eaten), the taste of the tomatoes will deteriorate.

Tomatoes of any degree of ripeness are harvested in dry weather. It's better to do this in the morning before they get hot in the sun. Using sharp scissors, the fruits are carefully cut off along with the stalk. At the same time, it is very important not to damage the skin: even a small wound reduces the shelf life of the fruit and can cause rot and mold to appear.

Tomatoes are removed from the bush along with the stalk

Then the tomatoes are sorted by degree of maturity and fruits with mechanical damage and signs of disease are rejected. If you notice the first symptoms of late blight, use these fruits for processing.

To prevent the development of late blight, the collected tomatoes must be immersed in hot water (60°C) for 1-2 minutes, and then gently wiped dry. Under the influence of high temperature, fungal spores located on the surface of the fruit will die.

Healthy tomatoes of medium and large sizes are carefully cleaned of sand and dirt and placed for ripening. This can be done using different methods.

Methods for ripening tomatoes at home
1. Traditional - in a well-ventilated and fairly humid room with a temperature of 20-25°C. Tomatoes are laid out on shelves, in baskets or boxes in several layers (no thicker than 20 cm) and checked every 3-5 days: ripe fruits are taken and those with damage are destroyed.

The conditions for ripening tomatoes can be changed at your discretion. If you want to speed up this process, increase the room temperature to 28°C, provide bright lighting and place a few red (fully ripe) tomatoes, red apples or bananas among the green and blanc fruits. The fact is that the ethylene gas released by these products contributes to faster ripening of tomatoes

To speed up the ripening of tomatoes, add a banana to them.

2. Layer-by-layer ripening of tomatoes. Unripe fruits are placed in any container in 2-3 layers (with each layer layered with paper or dry sawdust) and loosely covered with a lid to allow air to flow to the fruits (instead, you can shade the fruits with a cloth). Harvested tomatoes are stored at a temperature of 12-15°C and a humidity of 80-85%. Typically, such ripening lasts 30-40 days, but if necessary, it can be accelerated using the method described above.

3. Ripening tomatoes on the bushes. Plants are dug out from the garden bed along with their roots, shake off the soil and hang in a dry, well-ventilated and warm room with the root system facing up. In this case, the bushes should not touch each other so that there is good ventilation between them. Nutrients are transferred to the fruits from the roots and leaves, so such tomatoes often not only ripen, but also become larger.

Ripening tomatoes on bushes can be done in another way:

The plants, along with a lump of earth, are placed in boxes and the containers are placed in a greenhouse or veranda. Once a week, the bushes are watered at the root and the ripened fruits are picked from them.
Dug up or cut bushes (without an earthen ball) are placed with their tops in the middle of a stack 60-80 cm high, covered with straw on top. Every 5-6 days, in warm weather, the straw is removed and ripe fruits are collected, after which the stack is covered again.
Even if you weren’t able to pick your tomatoes on time, before frost sets in, there’s no reason to be upset! After all, you can also make delicious salads, pickles and marinades from green tomatoes.

In anticipation of a ripe and tasty tomato, the vegetable grower is rushing things. How you want to quickly taste the pleasant pulp and feel the familiar tomato taste. But humans have long learned to control the biochemical processes taking place in the cells of tomato fruits.

There is also another side. In addition, for a tomato to ripen, it must be firm, tasty, sweet, and this can also be controlled.

Tomatoes will ripen more slowly in a cool place without sunlight.

When hastening the ripening process, you should think carefully about your goals:

Achieve rapid, simultaneous maturation . This is done if it is necessary to sell the fruits. It is no secret that brown tomatoes will not be in demand on the market, and the price falls with increasing supply, so the process should be accelerated. The second aspect is the need for rapid ripening for processing. For example, if there are a lot of fruits and it is necessary to ferment in large containers, then the fruits must be of the same ripeness.
Extend ripening over time, allowing only a certain part to turn red . This goal is set if there is a need to reach certain holiday dates. Then initially the redness is delayed, and then accelerates.

General aspects

Tomatoes will quickly turn red on the windowsill, but some of them may spoil.

Whatever the goal, there are common points:

vegetables must be of good quality, physical damage (dents, beatings) and;
frost damage is unacceptable, such a product will quickly deteriorate;
The collection was carried out on a dry, sunny day.

It should be remembered that it is impossible to return the ripening processes.

Variety matters

Whatever efforts are made to accelerate ripening, if the variety is late, the processes will proceed very slowly.

In order for ripe tomatoes to be tasty, only the browning fruits need to be removed from the bushes.

In this regard, one condition must be strictly followed: “Only those tomatoes that have begun to enter the browning stage are removed from the bush.”

Picked green tomatoes will be dense and supposedly marketable, but after ripening they will have:

unpleasant taste (sugars either accumulate quickly or do not accumulate at all);
unpleasant odor;
disgusting aftertaste.

Conditions for rapid ripening

During the ripening process, direct sunlight should not fall on the fruits.

The rate of ripening of tomato fruits is affected by:

Temperature . The optimum varies between 22–24 ᵒC throughout the day.
No direct sunlight . Therefore, tomatoes placed for ripening should be covered.
Acetylene natural gas concentration . It is produced by fruits during the ripening period.

Method of laying for ripening

Green fruits are mixed with red ones.

To provide tomatoes with all the conditions, proceed as follows:

Brown fruits are placed in plastic or wooden boxes. If there is not a lot of tomato, you can put it in a bowl or pan.
Ripe apples or already ripe tomatoes are placed next to the tomato fruits (they emit a lot of acetylene gas).
The boxes are covered with light-proof materials.
Everything is installed in the house or any room where the temperature at night does not drop below 22 ᵒC. If there are not a lot of tomatoes, then you can put the bowl in the cabinet.

Ripening tricks

There is a lot of talk about the fact that alcoholic drinks affect the ripening of tomatoes and this is a legal fact.

Vodka injection accelerates the ripening process of tomatoes.

Scientific research was carried out back in 30s last century at the Peterhof Institute. The result was this: when 0.2 ml of ethyl alcohol was introduced into the pulp of a green tomato, the injection site began to rapidly turn red, followed by the entire fruit. Further spraying studies were carried out, and the results were also positive.

At home, you can skip spraying, but wrap the tomatoes in film and place an open bottle of alcohol under it. The vapors will evaporate and work towards ripening.

Tomatoes treated with alcohol ripen 12–15 days earlier than those that have not been manipulated.

Similar manipulations are carried out on an industrial scale. The tomatoes are placed in chambers. Next, a gas mixture is injected into them and maintained at a certain temperature. Then the fruits go to the consumer. This is how not only tomatoes are processed, but also bananas, oranges, and lemons.

If the tomatoes start to turn black instead of red

For ripening, it is necessary to select only healthy tomatoes.

Unfortunately, late blight does not spare the crop. Often, vegetable growers, seeing the progressive blackening of tomatoes, try with all their might to preserve the harvest and achieve rapid ripening.

If the fruits are already affected, they cannot be saved and consuming such tomatoes is dangerous.

If late blight appears on some fruits, but many of them are not yet affected, then you should do this:

We remove from the bush all the tomatoes that have reached marketable volume. Small and ugly ones do not need to be removed; after ripening they will not be tasty, and in any case they will have to be thrown away.
Prepare a salt solution in warm water (dissolve 1 glass of rock salt in a bucket of water, the temperature of which is tolerable for a human hand).
Dip the tomatoes into the solution using the full immersion method.
Let stand for 5–7 minutes.
We take it out.
Dry in the open air, but not under the scorching sun.
We put them in boxes, preferably in a layer of no more than two floors.
We send it for ripening.

The technique does not guarantee 100% preservation and ripening, but those vegetable growers who have tried this method share their experience and claim that the results are very good.

Tomatoes, promptly removed from the bush in an unripe state, are stored much longer than fruits that have ripened on the vine.

By carrying out the procedures to accelerate the ripening of fruits correctly, you can quickly get ripe and tasty tomatoes.

Video about traditional methods of ripening tomatoes

Quite often, at the end of autumn, green tomatoes remain hanging on the bushes. Some housewives find a use for them - salt them with herbs and garlic. But if you don’t have time to prepare, or your family simply doesn’t like this kind of preservation, don’t throw away green tomatoes. They can be stored for some time and consumed fresh. Before this, the tomatoes need to be helped to turn red.

Which green tomatoes are suitable for storage so that they turn red?

For storage, choose only completely whole green tomatoes. If the fruits have even the slightest dark spots or even the most microscopic cracks, mercilessly throw them away. Damage to the surface layer during long-term storage will lead to rotting of the tomato and further spread of mold to neighboring fruits. Collect all large and medium-sized tomatoes from the bushes. Also pay attention to the turgor of tomatoes - do not take limp ones. Only elastic and plump fruits are suitable for storage.

Storing green tomatoes directly on the bushes in a cool shed until they turn red

If the weather forecast predicts severe frosts, carefully dig up the bushes that still have green tomatoes on them. Shake off the soil from the roots and tie a strong rope to the bottom of the stem. Hang all bushes prepared in this way in a barn or garage - to do this, use cross beams under the roof. As the tomatoes ripen, remove them from the branches and eat them. Tomatoes will ripen well if there are no drafts in the shed or garage.

Storing green tomatoes on the windowsill in the house to make them turn red

This method will produce red tomatoes much faster than storing them in a cool shed:

Cut off the stems of the tomatoes.
Spread white paper or an old sheet on the windowsill.
Arrange the green tomatoes in a single layer.
As they ripen, choose red tomatoes and prepare salads from them.

On a warm windowsill, tomatoes will begin to ripen in approximately 7-8 days.

Storing green tomatoes in large boxes until they turn red

It happens that there are a lot of green tomatoes left, and there is very little space to store them in the house. Then take large cardboard boxes and put some of the tomatoes on the bottom. Cover the first layer with white paper, and then lay out the second layer. Cover it with paper too. Fill all the boxes in this way and cover them with lids or the same paper. Place the boxes in the closet or push them under the bed. After a week, check the tomatoes - select the pink ones, and put the rest back into storage. Place the pink ones on a light windowsill and wait for them to turn red. This will take another 2-3 days.

Storing green tomatoes in small containers until they turn red

This method will allow you to get red tomatoes in literally 3-4 days. Place 4-5 green tomatoes in an airtight jar or pan with a lid, and 1 ripe banana next to them. Close the container with a lid and place it in the kitchen cabinet. Yellow bananas in sealed conditions will begin to release a gas called ethylene, which will allow the tomatoes to ripen very quickly. This method should not be used for simultaneous ripening of a large number of tomatoes - after forced treatment with ethylene, the red fruits do not last long. You need to eat them within 2-3 days.

To ensure that tomatoes have time to ripen on the bushes under natural conditions, they can be helped by special agrotechnical methods. Which ones exactly - see in the video clip.

Very often, weather conditions do not allow waiting for tomatoes to ripen on the vine in their natural environment.

From mid-August, prolonged rains may begin, the temperature drops both day and night, and just behold, late blight will do its job...

What to do?

Here are several ways, or rather, tips, on how to save green tomatoes and how to ripen them at home.

First.

To ripen green tomatoes, we select medium and large fruits and make sure they are healthy. We place them in any containers in 2-3 layers, cover them with paper or dry sawdust. The optimal temperature for ripening is 12-15C, humidity 80%. If the temperature and humidity are lower, then the tomatoes may wilt and rot. After placing them in containers (boxes, basins, pans), close them on top. Tomatoes like to ripen in the dark. On average, the ripening process lasts about 30-40 days. As a rule, larger tomatoes ripen first.

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We speed up the process.

To speed up the ripening of tomatoes, add several ripe ones to the green ones. Ripe tomatoes emit gas - ethylene. It also helps accelerate the ripening of green tomatoes.

The fruits may turn black.

If tomatoes already have late blight spores, they can even turn black at home. To prevent this from happening, immerse them in hot water (60-70 g) for 1-2 minutes and then dry them. Hot water will kill the spores that are on the surface of the tomatoes.

On plants.