Garden full of un-ripe green tomatos...what to do?

[bettymae1121]

I could scream!

I planted a ton of tomatos in the spring, hoping to can them this fall. Unfortunately fall came early before most of them could rippen (coldest Sept. in 5 years!), and now it's too cold (and will stay too cold) for them to turn red. DH got a couple to use for sandwhiches, but that's it.

Is there anything I can do with them? I have a water bath canner and plenty of freezer space so if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears!

 

[bpesch]

Fried green tomatoes are yummy, but you can only eat so many of them. Green tomato relish is a possibility. If you google it you'll come up with lots of recipes. Other than that, I don't know. Maybe someone else will come up with some other ideas.

 

[Mickey2903]

I've had mine sitting in our kitchen window for about two weeks. Most of them have turned red. I haven't eaten one of them yet, but hopefully they will taste okay. Then again, I only have seven of them.

 

[stauncie]

leave them on the vine as long as possible. (remove them before the first frost)
if you store them stem side down in a cool, dry area, they will slowly ripen.
You can move them, a few at a time, to a sunny location to speed up the ripening process.

They will slowly ripen over a period of weeks. (You could be eating fresh tomatoes well after Thanksgiving!)

 

[bettymae1121]

leave them on the vine as long as possible. (remove them before the first frost)
if you store them stem side down in a cool, dry area, they will slowly ripen.
You can move them, a few at a time, to a sunny location to speed up the ripening process.
They will slowly ripen over a period of weeks. (You could be eating fresh tomatoes well after Thanksgiving!)

That would require sun! It's been cloudy 85% of the time for the last two weeks!

Thanks for the tip, we'll try leaving them on the plants as long as possible, but we'll have to figure out a space to put them in the house so they can rippen, we have at least a bushel if not more and I don't think we have enough window sills!

 

[pk1959]

I read this once, tried it, and it worked!! You wrap each tomato in some newspaper then put them into paper bags and put them in a cool, dark place. I was shocked and surprised that they actually ripened that way!

Now if you have a TON of tomatoes that would probably be a lot of work, but for the green ones that are left on the vine, I do it before the first frost with the remaining dozen or so and then have no waste.

 

[bettymae1121]

I read this once, tried it, and it worked!! You wrap each tomato in some newspaper then put them into paper bags and put them in a cool, dark place. I was shocked and surprised that they actually ripened that way!

Now if you have a TON of tomatoes that would probably be a lot of work, but for the green ones that are left on the vine, I do it before the first frost with the remaining dozen or so and then have no waste.

Oooh, that might work, we have a basement so "cool and dark" isn't a problem. And DH works for a newspaper so THAT, at least, is easy to come by!

Thanks!

 

[Minnesota!]

I just pull them off, put them in my kitchen, and they all ripen in about a week.

 

[secretpantssam]

I'm going to try to pickle my green tomatoes...I had them once at a restaurant and loved them. Hopefully I can recreate the magic!

 

[mjbaby]

I like pickling the smaller, bite-sized ones. Very yummy on a relish tray, chopped into tuna or chicken salad, or in a martini!

Larger green tomatoes I dice and then freeze (in a single layer on a cookie sheet). Once frozen I sweep them into quart-size canning jars and return to the freezer. They're great tangy add-ins for curries and soups through the winter.

 

[vitfamily]

This is what we do with our green tomatoes.

Picklelilly

1 peck green tomatoes- sliced
2 green peppers- sliced
2 red peppers- sliced
4 large onions-sliced

Pickling syrup
5 cups light brown sugar
½ teaspoon turmeric
½ teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
5 cups white vinegar

Bring pickling syrup to boil
Add vegetables -bring back to boil
Boil for 10-15 minutes
Put into canning jars.

 

[runwad]

Oooh, that might work, we have a basement so "cool and dark" isn't a problem. And DH works for a newspaper so THAT, at least, is easy to come by!

Thanks!

It does work. I didn't wrap mine in newspaper I just put them in a brown paper bag and put down the basement. Maybe it took longer that way? But it was nice around Thanksgiving to have fresh off the vine tomatoes; there's nothing like the taste of home grown tomatoes.

 

[mom2val]

.

 

[Mickey527]

I did the brown paper bag and newspaper thing a few years ago and I had tons of tomatoes that all ripened at the same time. But I ate all of them.
This year I have even more on the vine, enough to fry some green ones and still have plenty in the bags. My tomatoes went crazy this year, I eat one every day and still made a big pot of sauce twice.

 

[gillenkl]

wrap them in newspaper and they will ripen

 

[mrodgers]

Curious as to where you purchased your tomato plants. When we moved into our house, the tomato plants left by the previous owner I literally could not reach the top of the plants to pick the tomatoes.

I also dug up potatoes and filled a 4 foot wide, 3 foot deep, and 3 foot high crate with potatoes and the previous owner had already dug up 2 of the rows and given them away!

The first few years we ordered seeds (I plant a lot of corn) and bought any plants from a greenhouse. Had great gardens. Lots of tomatoes in the freezer (tomatoes from the freezer + home raised beef for ground meat + a can of kidney beans is all we use for chili, fantastic) and lots of corn in the freezer.

Lately due to funds, we've been just picking up seeds and plants at Lowes since my wife now works there and haven't produced hardly anything to put in the freezer. Told the wife we are done with Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc for the garden stuff and I'll travel to the greenhouse (nothing local for me) from now on for plants and order seeds online.

Tomatoes should be coming out our ears even for us up north way before it starts to get cold at night like it is now. For me, I think it is the crappy tomato plants from Lowes.

 

[momof1princess]

Curious as to where you purchased your tomato plants. When we moved into our house, the tomato plants left by the previous owner I literally could not reach the top of the plants to pick the tomatoes.

I also dug up potatoes and filled a 4 foot wide, 3 foot deep, and 3 foot high crate with potatoes and the previous owner had already dug up 2 of the rows and given them away!

The first few years we ordered seeds (I plant a lot of corn) and bought any plants from a greenhouse. Had great gardens. Lots of tomatoes in the freezer (tomatoes from the freezer + home raised beef for ground meat + a can of kidney beans is all we use for chili, fantastic) and lots of corn in the freezer.

Lately due to funds, we've been just picking up seeds and plants at Lowes since my wife now works there and haven't produced hardly anything to put in the freezer. Told the wife we are done with Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, etc for the garden stuff and I'll travel to the greenhouse (nothing local for me) from now on for plants and order seeds online.

Tomatoes should be coming out our ears even for us up north way before it starts to get cold at night like it is now. For me, I think it is the crappy tomato plants from Lowes.

we buy our tomato plants (atkinson variety) from a local farmer's co-op, and we're still picking tomatoes, even though it's been unseasonably cool here in NE alabama lately. we MIGHT get a frost saturday night, so that would likely kill the plants, but, until then, i'll be enjoying my tomatoes!
i usually just set a few on my kitchen counter to ripen, but, if you have a bushel of them, i think i'd go with the wrapping in newspaper idea.

 

[MaggieBailey]

Growing up, we had huge gardens - and all of those "leftover" green tomatoes we would put in brown paper bags, and store them in the garage (cool, dry) and they would ripen..... Good luck to you !

 

[seashoreCM]

Let's see, if you wrap some of them and put some of them unwrapped on sunny windowsills you should be able to get batches ripening at different times.

Perhaps you can eat them all by themselves for snacks.

If worse comes to worst and you can't eat all of them perhaps you can make use of the good ones first and save the ones that came off the crappy tomato plants from Lowes for last. Then bury the ones that didn't get eaten before they rotted in order to fertilize the next year's crop.

 

[Candace]

I have never made them myself, but as a child, we had Sweet Green Tomato pickles that someone made. they were absolutely to die for! Now that I am retired, I ought to try to make/can them myself!