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Most of our country is in the zone of risky agriculture. Warm-loving crops such as peppers, eggplants and tomatoes rarely produce a full harvest of ripe fruits. Usually you have to remove unripe and sometimes completely green tomatoes. Experienced gardeners recommend picking fruits at ripeness, without waiting for complete redness, so that the plants have more strength for further fruiting. A special case is the mass disease of tomatoes with late blight. A harmful mushroom can destroy a crop in a matter of days. Tomatoes collected from such bushes will most likely get sick.
Ripening tomatoes with signs of late blight
Green tomatoes, collected from diseased bushes, are placed in a plastic box with holes, for example, from under fruits, and poured with hot water at a temperature of about 60 degrees for several minutes, dried and left to ripen. They need to be checked daily, removing sick ones.
With slight damage, tomatoes can be used to make salads. There are many recipes for making them.
In order for picked tomatoes to be well stored and fully ripened, you need to pick them from the bush correctly and on time.
How to pick tomatoes
- During the season, you need to harvest systematically, about once every 5 days, and more often in hot weather.
- Trim tomatoes with scissors.
This must be done very carefully. The slightest damage will lead to rapid spoilage of the tomato. - Harvesting time is morning, before the tomatoes get hot in the sun. They must be dry, without droplets of dew. There is no need to remove the stalks of tomatoes so as not to accidentally injure the fruits. Tomatoes ripen better with stalks.
- Low temperatures harm fruits, causing them to rot. If the night temperature in the open ground approaches plus 5 degrees, it’s time to remove all green tomatoes.
- In the greenhouse the temperature limit is higher - plus 9 degrees.
How to properly ripen green tomatoes at home
There are several proven methods. The optimal temperature for ripening is from 13 to 15 degrees, humidity should be maintained at 80%.
Methods for ripening tomatoes
Traditional
Selected medium and large-sized tomatoes are laid out in 2-3 layers in containers, for example, in boxes or baskets. To avoid condensation, the tomatoes are covered with soft paper or sprinkled with sawdust. Reddened tomatoes are selected, spoiled ones are removed. To do this, containers with tomatoes are regularly inspected.
On the bushes
In a barn or other suitable, but always warm room, hang tomato bushes, torn from the garden beds upside down. Nutrients will flow from the roots to the top of the stem, promoting the appearance of red fruits, but not only.Small tomatoes will gain weight and become larger.
You can do it differently - bury the bushes in a suitable warm room, maintaining low humidity in the root area. The effect of this method will be no worse than the previous one.
Stacked
If there are a large number of tomato bushes, cut them off at the root and put them in a stack. They need to be placed with their tops towards the center. Its height is no more than 60 cm. We insulate the stack with straw mats. To check and collect red fruits, we inspect the stack every few days, choosing warm weather.
If you maintain a temperature of about 15 degrees and a humidity of about 80%, the tomatoes will fully ripen in a maximum of 40 days. But there are ways to speed up this process without losing the quality of the tomatoes. How can I make them blush faster?
How to speed up maturation
To do this, you need to create appropriate conditions for them. How to do this correctly? Tomatoes, especially those of blanzhe ripeness, ripen faster in warmth and with access to light. Therefore, the best way is to place them on a windowsill where sunlight reaches them. There they turn red well.
It is known that tomatoes ripen well in the presence of ethylene gas. It is released by all ripe vegetables and fruits. You can increase the ethylene concentration in the ripening zone of green tomatoes in the following ways:
- add a few completely reddened tomatoes to them; the rest of the tomatoes should ripen faster;
- add a couple of ripe bananas or red apples to green tomatoes, this will also allow them to ripen faster;
- inject 0.5 ml of vodka into each tomato; Ethylene is released from ethyl alcohol inside a green tomato; the question of where to give the injection can be answered - best in the area of the stalk.
Very often, gardeners strive not to speed up, but to slow down the ripening of tomatoes in order to extend the period of their consumption.
How to slow down the ripening of tomatoes at home
- In this case, tomatoes should be picked only when they are green, but when they reach the size corresponding to the variety.
- Keep boxes with fruits in a well-ventilated area and away from light.
- The temperature for completely green fruits is about 12 degrees, for brown ones - about 6 degrees, and for pink ones - even less, about 2 degrees.
- You need to sort and select ripe tomatoes often and regularly.
- In the room where the fruits lie, you should monitor the humidity, it should not be higher than 85%, too low humidity is also bad, the fruits will simply dry out.
If the tomato harvest did not have time to ripen on the vine, there is no need to be upset. Some tomatoes can be processed, while the rest can be ripened if they are provided with the appropriate conditions. Ripe tomatoes are not much different in taste and beneficial properties from those that are ripe on the vine. Well, greenhouse tomatoes cannot compare with them.
