The Vine-Ripened Tomato Lie
Posted by admin | Under home kitchen garden, plant tomatoes, plant vegetables, small kitchen garden Monday Aug 10, 2009
From a tiny yellow blossom: a grape-sized tomato, a golf-ball-sized orb, or something the size of a grapefruit? The size of the blossom doesn’t tell you much about the size of the fruit that’s on the way.
Tomatoes are coming on full-force in my small kitchen garden, and I hope you’re having the same kind of luck with yours. I understand that cool and wet weather has challenged many tomato plants from the Midwest into the Northeast. The lucky folks, apparently, have lost some fruit to blossom-end rot. The unlucky ones have seen late blight decimate their plants.
Whether your tomatoes are growing strong, coming ripe, or dying on the vine, you’ve probably been involved in at least one conversation about tomatoes this year. The one I hear repeatedly is about how terrible are the tomatoes you buy in grocery stores. Invariably, everyone in this conversation agrees, and someone offers up that those tomatoes come off the vines green and travel cross-country while ripening… and if it doesn’t ripen on the vine, it’s just no good.
I respectfully submit: That last observation is complete hogwash.
Water regularly, and your tomatoes will likely come out OK. However, one ill-timed rainstorm could cause cracks that lead to rot, insect infestations, and mildew.
Genetics Makes a Lousy Tomato
If you want a tomato that tastes horrible and has lousy texture, start by planting seeds for the “tastes horrible and has lousy texture” tomato. That’s what commercial grocery suppliers do. Plant breeders spent decades developing varieties of tomatoes that hold up incredibly well when stacked and jostled during harvest and transport. They paid no attention to the flavor and textural appeal of these tomatoes.
Hapless grocery store shoppers buy those horrid things because those shoppers have grown up believing real tomatoes taste horrible and have lousy texture. OK… that horrible flavor becomes an acquired taste if it’s the only tomato you ever eat.
If the tomato cracks early, it may try to heal itself. Once healed, it won’t attract insects and disease, but there will be a section you’d rather not chew.
These tomatoes aren’t bad because they’re picked green. They’re bad because they’re a lousy breed. Put a decent tomato on a truck and ship it 3,000 miles, and it’ll be a smooshed tomato at its destination.
Vine-Ripened is Over-Rated
On the flip-side of this discussion is the erroneously perpetuated belief that a tomato must ripen on the vine to be good. I’m confident that the belief exists because no right-minded gardener would pick a tomato before it’s ripe (unless there was threat of frost). Yet, would the right-minded gardeners of the world pick some un-ripened tomatoes for the sake of comparison, they would learn an astonishing and happy truth: vine-ripening is way over-rated.
In fact, vine-ripening tomatoes is one of the most challenging of all gardening tasks… yet experienced gardeners so often suggest tomatoes as the ideal beginner’s crop: Tomatoes are so easy to grow, we say, and they’re so superior to store-bought. But unless you have absolute control over how much rain falls in your small kitchen garden, and how often it falls, growing beautiful ripe tomatoes is a bit of a nail-biting proposition.
This tomato cracked because it got too much water during ripening. The cracks healed, but then the tomato received too much sunshine, so it developed green shoulders. When I slice this up for salad, I’ll probably cut off some of the green stuff, leaving less to eat.
Perfect Tomato Culture
When a tomato first emerges from its tiny yellow tomato flower, it’s hard to visualize the monster it may eventually become. Still, over the course of a month, the little green ball grows larger as it sucks water from the tomato plant. To produce a perfect, ripe tomato, the plant must draw from a steady supply of water. If there is no rain, you should water two or three times a week. Ideally the weekly total will be a full inch of water over the area defined by the outstretched leaves of the plant.
If you can manage that, you may also need to control the amount of sunlight that reaches the individual tomatoes; a tomato that gets excessive direct sun may not ripen evenly.
Cracks and Hard Spots (Green Shoulders)
So, you’re controlling the amount of water and sunlight your tomatoes get, and then it rains. Your tomato plants don’t mind too much of a good thing; they suck up the additional burst of water and the young, green tomatoes get larger. Here’s the rub: tomatoes that have started to ripen aren’t as resilient as younger, greener tomatoes. As they expand under the new load of water, their skins are likely to stretch and tear.
A tomato that gets extra water during its last week or two of growth can develop stretch marks and cracks in the skin. Left to finish ripening, the cracked tomato can attract fruit flies and other sugar-loving insects, fungus and mold, and bacteria that rapidly reduce the tomato’s innards to smelly slime.
Even without the rain storm, sunlight striking the top of a tomato on the vine can prevent ripening there while the bottom and sides of the tomato sweeten, soften, and turn bright red (or whatever other color represents ripe for the varieties you grow). These “green shoulders” detract considerably from the flavor and texture of an otherwise ripe fruit.
This tomato has just started to show pink; I‘ll let it ripen on my dining room table and it will be ready to use in seven-to-fourteen days. It will taste every bit as good as a cracked tomato with green shoulders that ripens on the vine. Actually, it’ll taste better, because it won’t have green shoulders!
So, Don’t Vine-Ripen!
Earlier I said, “…unless you have absolute control over how much rain falls and how often…” You do have such control! Quite simply: don’t let your tomatoes ripen on the vine. When pink first appears on a tomato’s skin, pick the tomato and set it inside out of direct sunlight.
Unless I get busy and miss a few days, I pick each tomato when it starts to change color. Typically, this means that every second day, I harvest anything showing pink. I fill a large stainless steel bowl with the day’s pickings, and set it on my dining room table. About seven-to-ten days later, the tomatoes reach peak ripeness without torn skin and without green shoulders… and every tomato is just as delectable as any tomato I ever let ripen on the vine. In fact, every tomato is nearly perfect… and I could never say that in the days that I left them on the plants.
I picked these tomatoes about two weeks before I photographed them. They ripened on my dining room table, and they are as red, juicy, sweet, and delicious as any vine-ripened tomato.
Oh, Yeah? (an Anecdote)
I visited with a farmer once who managed an impressive kitchen garden. Before touring his garden, his wife and I discussed various gardening techniques. At one point, she insisted: “Oh, we let all our tomatoes ripen on the vine. They’re just not as good if they don’t.”
I countered: “I’ve found if I pick them when they start to ripen, they never split or develop green shoulders… and you can’t taste the difference.”
Her reply: “A farmer can taste the difference… and our tomatoes never crack.”
When we reached the garden, every red tomato on every tomato plant had one or more cracks in its skin. (No, I didn’t comment about it… that would have been rude. But I’d sure like to put my tomatoes up against hers in a taste-test with farmers.)
Here are links to other articles that discuss green shoulders and cracking tomatoes:
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Ripening Disorders in Tomatoes « Weekly Crop Update – I have seen a considerable amount of tomato blotchy ripening, yellow shoulder, graywall and white tissue in market tomatoes recently. The discolored tissue is often hard even when the rest of the tomato is ripe. These are physiological ripening disorders and not diseases.
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Tomato Quirks Part 3 – Green Shoulders : Veggie Gardener – Have you ever had a tomato that seemed to never really ripen all the way on top? Find out how and why this happens, and how to prevent it.
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Cincinnati.Com | Cincinnati Enquirer | Cincinnati Gardener … – Tags: black walnut tree, black walnuts, Cincinnati, cracked tomatoes, garden, garden question, Home and Garden, juglone, juglone toxin, split tomatoes. This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 3:06 pm and is filed under …
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tomato garden – cracked tomatoes causing disappointment this year … – longtime gardeners have struggled this year with cracked tomatoes — just as the tomato is almost ripe, it splits and in a short period of time, is invaded by insects or rots. many of the vegetable more …
I may have to experiment with this. I have a ton of just starting to turn tomatoes, but with the on-again-off-again weather I’m afraid they’re going to spoil they turn red.
[...] As they say in the blogosphere, go read the whole thing. [...]
Great article! Just a couple of thoughts:
You are correct about the taste being virtually the same, because we’ve bought not-quite-ripe tomatoes at the local farmer’s market and let them sit in a bowl and they were just as tasty. However, I personally like the taste of a ripe tomato warm from the sun, and I can’t pop a pinkish cherry tomato in my mouth while standing barefoot in the kitchen garden — yuck! We also like to slice up warm tomatoes moments before they’re served for dinner. These are two pleasures I wouldn’t want to give up entirely. I also wouldn’t want to give up the sight of tomatoes ripening on the vine, like glowing jewels, when I look out on my garden. The visual pleasures are just as much a part of it for me as the taste (and I have a photo-blog of my kitchen garden to demonstrate
.
Still, I can bring in a few for more aesthetically pleasing tomatoes, especially for giving away. I would also note, as far as cracking goes, that Americans are far too trained to expect “perfect” produce, which usually tastes like cardboard. It might be good for us all to learn to cut away the blemishes on all kinds of produce! In general, we are way too picky.
Meryl: A belated thank you for visiting. I hope you’ve had a chance to experiment and have been satisfied with the results.
-Daniel
Meredith: Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I’m a tad chagrined at some of my word choices in my post; I try not to sound as though what I teach is the right way. Given the vast array of gardening techniques, I try to advocate: do what works for you… and what makes you happy.
This post was a bit of a departure, I think, because I had recently heard several people insist that vine-ripened is to die for and anything else is garbage. Since that just isn’t so, my comments were very much a counterpoint rather than simply a “here’s how I do it, you might like it too.”
Honestly, that’s my attitude: find what works best for you, and enjoy what you’re doing. You obviously enjoy what you’re doing! Thanks for visiting, and for the link!
-Daniel
I too enjoy a warm sliced tomatoe from the garden. I have experienced a few black bottoms this year but have been diligent in getting rid of them a.s.a.p. I think it helped with the others fairing better. I also have cherry tomatoes that seem to split if not picked as soon as color appear. The rest of the tomatoes mainly Romas, Better Girls, and Bigger Boys are just fine.Last year I had so many green on the vine at the end of the year I was afraid frost would hit before they’d ripen so I picked them all and put them in a paper bag and they were just as good as any vine ripened tomatoe.
I 2nd pulling them in. I am gonna wait until about halfway this year than pull inside.
I also think it helps somewhat with not having as many tomatoes lost to pest’s. I have never had any green tomatoes bitten into or chewed on, but leave a ripened tom on the vine, it’s gone and found later on in the middle of my yard chewed on.
I’m with you – our tomatoes are about 50/50 windowsill ripened and vine ripened. The taste difference is negligible but the windowsill ones don’t get attacked by slugs or flies or even birds!
I came across this suggestion either in a book or on a blog. This is my first garden.I live in the suburbs with tons of pests. I have 3 tomato plants that I grew in compost and they all reached over 7 ft tall, 3 ft wide. I have picked every single one “at first blush”. I love to put a ripening banana in the bottom of a fruit bowl and pile the tomatoes on top and cover with a towel.They give off ethylene the same gas the ripening tomatoes give off. This is what they do commercially(although without the banana)I have 3 bowls going at once. The “first blushers” The” almost ready” and “the ready to eat” bowl. I had a party yesterday and was able to get many “oohs and aahhs” from family and friends. Not one crack or blemish. I have harvested more than 200 tomatoes so far. Since this is my first time I only have to go on what others tell me and that my turn out is amazing. I liked being able to send people who had a ways to travel back home the greener tomatoes so they did not have to rush to eat them . I have been so happy. I live in Michigan if that helps.The rain is not predictable. I saw a red tomato in someones garden in passing and it killed me. All I could think of was the bugs and beetles taking a big juicy bite out of it. Hope this helps
Vine ripened tomatoes will have a higher concentration of nutrients and minerals compared to the pseudo-ripened tomatoes picked prematurely. The truth is, the green preemies simply turn red in color once they’re picked from the vine, they do not fully ripen as a true, vine ripened tomato does. And if you put it to the test, the vine ripened tomato will have a superior flavor compared to that of it’s premature counterpart “ripened” off the vine.
The preemies might still taste good once they “ripen” indoors, but this would be most likely because it’s a good strain of tomato. The point is, you get a higher dose of vitamins and minerals and a superior taste from a vine ripened tomato.
I wish Dr. Tomato would provide a few references/explanations for his assertions.
Anyway, there’s another advantage to bring tomatoes in early: you don’t have to fight with the squirrels for them! Until now, I’ve left my tomatoes to ripen on the vine and have really struggled to get my newly ripe tomatoes before the critters do! Since they don’t like ‘blushy’ tomatoes, I’ll get to enjoy more of my crop.
Thanks for the tip.
Jeanie: Thank you for you comments. I’m gun-shy about those end-of-season tomatoes. I think the ones that grow up when the weather is very cool and come inside green tend to be tougher, harder, and less appetizing than hot-weather tomatoes. People report good experiences with ripening them after frost; apparently that has worked for you.
Melissa: I’ve heard that most critters chew on fruits because they can’t find local sources of drinking water. In dry years, you may be able to protect tomatoes from foragers simply by keeping a bowl of fresh water on the ground somewhere near your garden. I’ve never tried this, but it hints at truth: I’ve had my tomatoes chewed by rodents only during very dry summers.
allotment blogger: I adopted the pick-pink method because I tossed so many split, buggy, and rotting tomatoes in the compost heap… and table-ripening produced delicious, juicy tomatoes in fine shape. I’m glad you found something that works for you.
first timer: Since posting this article, I’ve seen evidence of a fairly well-established pick-pink school of tomato growers. Thanks for letting us know there are other advocates out there.
Dr Tomato: Thank you for your comments. It seems reasonable that more vitamins and minerals find their way into a tomato ripening on the vine. As well, I’ve heard a lot of bias that vine-ripened tomatoes taste better. I’d be grateful if you’d provide links to studies that support the claim about nutrition; I’d be surprised to learn that the difference in nutrition is anything but minor. As for flavor? If I had tasted a difference in the first season I tried this, I wouldn’t be advocating a pick-pink approach, but I concede that people with taste buds more sensitive than mine may taste a difference.
Throwing terms like “pseudo-ripen” into the discussion feels more like marketing an opinion than sharing information; it detracts from your argument and makes the information you provide suspect. Ripening is ripening; the definition doesn’t mention where a fruit is when ripening takes place. Seeds from picked-pink tomatoes are fully-mature and grow into new plants. The fruits become juicy, sweet, and delicious; they ripen.
Some fruits – pears, for example – simply ripen better after you pick them than they do if you leave them on their host plants. Tomatoes, I think, are on the fence: depending on your sensibilities, you may be happier with picked-pink tomatoes. If you prefer vine-ripened, that’s fine too.
Anna: Thank you for your observations. I wonder if the critters in some regions are more tomato-aware than the critters in other regions are. My tomatoes have been wildly successful this season, and I’ve had none bitten by critters… though that may make your point: I pick them when they show pink.
So weird, yet so appropriate to see this post. Due to the typical (yet again)erratic behavior of Mid-Atlantic weather, this year I have started pulling my tomatoes off the vine once they showed ANY signs of color, because EVERY SINGLE ONE otherwise is developing deep, gigantic, SENT FROM HELL cracks. We had a rather moderate spring and early summer, followed by an abrupt drought and soaring temps, and then many torrential rain events with continuing high temps. Now the rain has abated, temps have cooled, but the plants are hanging on by a thread. I don’t freakin care if snatching them early compromises the sugar, I am taking them early and doing a compromise ripening rather than not having any at all!
Good post. There are benefits to the dreaded soil though, as it contains a whole array of microbes that assist digestion, or so I am told.
I’m racing with blight, hoping that some tomatoes will show some color so I can bring them in. I would be so delighted with pink tomatoes at this point – I may have to develop a taste for green tomatoes. Any recipes for green tomato relish?
My only experiences with green tomatoes are 1: Classic fried green… not compelling enough for me that I’d bother with them. 2: Green tomato mincemeat. As mincemeat goes, this was fine. If you have any interest, I suspect I can dig up a recipe.
That said, if you come up with a green tomato relish (or other product) to die for, please let me know. I don’t think I’ll have green tomatoes this season, but I’m hoping there’ll be a few next seasons in which I might get some green ones
Hmmmm. Interesting post and comments. I’ve picked unripe tomatoes at the end of season of necessity, but never considered doing it to avoid splitting and other issues. For those whose garden is just at their door, the still-sun-warmed tomato is an easy treat. For those like me who have a bit of a hike to reach the allotment, the idea of catch-as-catch-can is useful. If I get *any* tomatoes on my late-planted vines this year, it’s likely they’ll have to be ripened indoors.
I, too, would be interested in the science behind the nutrient value of tomatoes, whether vine ripened or the tabletop technique.
I read you can pull the whole plant with the tomatoes still on the vine (just before frost) and they will keep well and continue to ripen if kept in cool dry place. Has anyone tried this? I got a late start on planting and my tom are mostly still green. I don’t want to loose them. Great info here. Thanks
[...] do plan to take the advice I found earlier this summer over at a blog called Your Small Kitchen Garden and pull all the green [...]
I came across this website as I race against the frost. I have a tonne of tomatoes but have only had about 5 that went ripe (including the ones I picked when starting and that are sitting ripening inside right now).
I tried picking some green, but they went bad before they started to ripen. Any suggestions for ripening very green tomatoes?
I’m afraid the answer depends very much on why your tomatoes went bad before the started to ripen. Did they develop brown lesions on the skin and then start to get soft? I posted photos of such tomatoes here: Tomato Strife in Small Kitchen Gardens Everywhere. If your tomatoes have late blight, you may simply be out of luck.
That’s the worst scenario. A tomato – even one picked green – wants to ripen, and it can though it might not be as satisfying as a tomato that has at least started to show pink before you pick it. Still, the conventional wisdom is: wrap each tomato in a page from a newspaper and put many together in a paper bag. Fold over the bag and let it sit at room temperature. Unfortunately, you need to check the tomatoes every other day or so and remove ones that start to go bad. (Wrapping tomatoes individually in newspaper before putting them in a bag may reduce the spread of diseases – such as Late Blight – if there are any on any of the tomatoes.) Some people put ripe bananas in with their tomatoes because gas given off by the bananas promotes ripening. I’ve had some success with bagging green tomatoes this way, but it’s not a panacea.
After that, I’d encourage you to look into ways to use green tomatoes in cooking. I’m not a fan of fried green tomatoes, though some people rave about them. I do, however, like a good green tomato mincemeat.
Hi!
We have had late ripening on the vine but plants have pumped out so many we’ve been giving them away by the box, bag, 1/2 bushel, and bushel. I am beginning to look on late blight as a friend since I am kinda sorta sick of the smell of cooking/canning tomatoes!
Our plants are about 95% heirloom varieties, though, which I find has helped them. Yes, I know there is a school of thought that says the hybrids are more vigorous, disease-resistant and dependable than the heirlooms, but in nearly 20 years of growing tomatoes, I have to say I have found that to be another tomato myth. Don’t get me wrong — there are some good hybrids (Sungold leaps to mind!!), but overall in our experience, the majority of our heirloom choices have out-germinated, out-grown, out-produced, and out-survived disease, adverse weather conditions, something I’ve found to be true gardening in two different zones, first Zone 7 and now 5b.
The success rate for picking them before frost and ripening them inside has been quite high, and last year’s last fresh tomato was consumed in a salad around New Year’s.
Oh, and yes, I DO have a good green tomato relish recipe if anyone wants it! Works well as a pickle relish substitute making yummy tuna salad, potato salad, and a stellar homemade Thousand Island Dressing — one of the easiest dressings to make EVER. It’s just mayo, relish, and catsup in whatever proportions taste best to you. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper and a little mustard if you like more bite, then enjoy!
Happy Gardening!
So you don’t vine ripen and your tomatoes look prettier. SO WHAT. The taste difference is phenomonal and if you can’t taste it the problem is with your taste buds not the tomatoes. Next you would have us believe shelf ripened bananas and pineapples are good too. And don’t forget oranges and grapefruits.
Anthony: Thank you for visiting and sharing your perspective. But, wow! Why such an unpleasant tone? I’m encouraging people to think beyond the conventional and learn something for themselves. I encourage you to read all the comments associated with this blog post: I really don’t want people to believe something just cuz I said it, I encourage people to try and decide whether my approach is appropriate for them. I’m confident when I say that in a side-by-side taste test, vine-ripened and shelf-ripened tomatoes of the same variety are virtually indistinguishable in flavor and texture. If it pleases you to insist I’m wrong without testing this for yourself, by all means, feel free. If you like to experiment and learn new things, please try some shelf ripening and do your own comparisons.
Bananas and pineapples? Around here, the only bananas and pineapples available at any time of year were picked green and shipped. Most need to sit on the counter for three to five days before they’re ready to eat. Are they as good as bananas and pineapples ripened on the plants and then harvested? I can’t say; I’ve never picked bananas or pineapples ripe. Given the chance, I would love to make a comparison so I can speak authoritatively on the differences. Until I make those comparisons, I’ll try to remain civil when I express my opinions about the issue.