How To Speed Up The Ripening Of Tomatoes

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

The benefits of ripe tomatoes

The first ripe tomato is the pride of the gardener. Killing neighbors outright in a casual conversation with the phrase "Today we ate our tomatoes for lunch" is the goal we strive for all summer, caring for our wards.

Finally, not only early ripe tomatoes have begun to ripen in the greenhouse. Of course, the most delicious tomatoes are when they turn red on the bush. If they are overripe, their taste deteriorates. If you remove green or even brown ones from a bush and let them ripen at home, then the taste will also not be the best. Therefore, an important task when growing tomatoes is to give them the opportunity to blush on the bush.

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In addition, scientists who have been very interested in the beneficial properties of tomatoes in recent years have found that tomatoes that turn red on the bush are not only tastier, but also much more useful than those that turn red at home in a felt boot. They contain much more vitamins and biologically active substances, in particular, lycopene and carotene, which determine the color of the fruit.

It makes sense to pick salad tomato varieties only at the stage of full maturity, because at this time they contain a maximum of carotenoids. Vitamin A is stored in the body in reserve for up to a year or more. Therefore, it is better to eat ripe tomatoes in the summer in order to stock up on this vitamin for the whole winter.

Many gardeners prefer picking tomatoes at the stage of blanche ripeness, because at the same time, it seems, the yield is higher. Unfortunately, at the stage of blanche ripeness, tomatoes have not yet collected a sufficient amount of vitamins, sugars, pectin. But they managed to gain a lot of fiber. So the most useful are ripe tomatoes. However, not all tomatoes are in a hurry to blush. By the time the harvest is complete, many green fruits remain on the bushes. Usually, a complete harvest of tomatoes is done when the cold comes, and the tomatoes stop growing and ripening. It makes no sense to keep them in a greenhouse, they will not grow anyway, but they can get sick. So the task of accelerating the reddening of tomatoes on the bush is doubly important, and you will have to help them ripen by the end of summer.

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Ways to accelerate the ripening of tomatoes

One of the well-known methods of accelerating the ripening of tomatoes, which our magazine has already written about in one of the previous issues, is to break off the lower leaves on the bushes. They tear off two leaves a week, no more, so that the process of restructuring metabolic processes goes gradually, so that the bush does not survive stress. Usually, once every three days, I cut off from all the bushes on a leaf, starting from the lowest. By the time the tomatoes in the brush reach the size inherent in this variety, and the skin of the fruit begins to shine, about to begin to change color, all the leaves under the brush should be torn off. Do the same with the leaves and under the following brushes.

At the end of the last cold summer, in August, I tried another trick to accelerate ripening, which is that during the day, even in sunny weather, my greenhouse is closed. It's hot there all day, like in the south, and the tomatoes turn red rather briskly. The heat is not scary to the bushes, because there are no flowers on them for a long time, they are all removed. And phytophthora did not want to climb into the greenhouse, although she had been raging on potatoes next to the greenhouse for a long time.

In the morning, I would open the greenhouse for a couple of hours to ventilate and dry out the condensation that had accumulated overnight. At 5-6 pm I also opened it for an hour to dry, unless, of course, it was raining. The result was amazing: in a cold, rainy summer, tomatoes were actively blushing on the bushes, there was no phytophthora on the fruits.

Mass ripening of fruits is faster if the bushes grow on lean rather than oily soil. Therefore, in order to accelerate ripening from the second decade of July, it is necessary to stop all watering and feeding. Otherwise, the green mass will simply grow, to the detriment of the ripening rate.

The development of tomato fruits has two stages: 30 days after setting the fruit grows, the next 15-20 days it ripens. Ripening is gradual. First, the green fruits become lighter - milky ripeness, then turn brown - blanch ripeness, while the pulp begins to acquire the color characteristic of the variety, and, finally, reach full maturity when the skin and pulp acquire full color. Collecting tomatoes in the open field

In the open field, where, according to scientists, tomatoes are the most useful, they ripen only in hot summer. Usually in the open field there is one criterion for the timing of the harvest - the tomatoes must be removed from the bushes before the nights with the so-called cold dew appear, i.e. it turns out until August 5-10. Regardless of the degree of maturity. Only in this way can you avoid the disease of fruits with late blight. These tomatoes are usually harvested, best for recipes for green tomatoes, because street tomatoes rarely last until they turn red. They usually rot or die from late blight.

Ripening tomatoes

Tomatoes ripen well in boxes of foreign fruits. And better - in warm rooms. To accelerate ripening, some red ones are placed in green tomatoes. If, on the contrary, it is necessary that the tomatoes lie as long as possible, then for this it is necessary to grow special varieties with a genetically increased keeping time. For example, the Adonis hybrid, the Giraffe and Long Kipper varieties lie until March 8 in room conditions, and the New Year's variety, as well as Khutorskoy pickling, until the New Year. These tomatoes need to be picked at the stage of blanche ripeness, then they can be stored indoors for a month, and if in a cooler place, then for two to three months. Many of these varieties last longer if plucked unripe, but they will not taste good, although they will become very beautiful.