Ripening tomatoes on the vine versus indoors
While
researching tomato blemishes, I stumbled across a piece of data that
seems unbelievable to me --- vine ripened tomatoes taste no better than
those picked at the first hint of red and ripened indoors. Chuck
Marr, the horticulture program leader at Kansas
State University Research and Extension, says:
Marr says that you can
avoid most of the cosmetic problems I discussed in this lunchtime
series by picking your tomatoes early and ripening them in your kitchen
out of direct sunlight. The
blogger who tipped me off to this process
notes that storebought tomatoes taste awful not because they were
picked too soon, but because they are a variety bred to be tough and
easily transportable.
I think it's time for a
taste test! I've picked a couple of
blushing tomatoes to ripen in the kitchen, and will report on our taste
test in a week or so. I hope some of our loyal readers will try
it at home and report back too.
| This post is part of our Minor Tomato Ailments lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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We almost always pick our tomatoes at the first sign of red. We started doing this to get to them before the chickens. The girls just love ripe tomatoes.
I don't notice any difference in taste and their fresh storage life seems to be longer.