Did you know that you can store green tomatoes inside when it’s too cold for them outside and they will gradually ripen? You can eat homegrown tomatoes in the winter time and stretch your canning out to the months where you actually don’t mind heating your house up with the stove.
Pick your green tomatoes
We inevitably have loads of green and partially ripened tomatoes still on the vine when the frost hits. My father-in-law, being the garden guru that he is, is a weather watcher. He lets us know when the hard freeze is threatening, so we can gather in the harvest.
The day before the frost was predicted, the kids and I went out to pick all the green tomatoes we could handle (and of course the red, yellow, and orange ones too) . Any tomatoes that are the mature size for their variety (because they aren’t going to grow inside), but are just waiting to turn color, will be just fine to bring inside to ripen. Leaving the stem and leaves intact will help prevent the tomatoes from going bad. We picked ours into boxes and bags, then brought them inside to sort.
Sort your green tomatoes
Sorting tomatoes by color is a great project for toddlers or preschoolers who are learning colors! We sorted them into three categories:
- Red and ready to use
- Starting to turn (yellows and oranges)
- Totally green
Having the tomatoes that are starting to turn separate from the completely green tomatoes will make checking the tomatoes much easier.
Store your green tomatoes
- I used short, open, flat boxes to store my tomatoes. I lined the boxes with a piece of paper grocery bag to help keep the boxes clean (yep, we even reuse boxes around here, especially for picking garden produce).
- Tomatoes should be stored in single-layers if possible. Having single layers makes checking for ripe tomatoes easier. If one tomato goes bad, it will be a bad influence, so to speak, on the surrounding tomatoes. When I ran out of shorter boxes, I successfully did a couple double-layered boxes.
- With the double-layered boxes, I made sure the bottom layer was entirely green tomatoes. I put a piece of paper bag on top of the green tomatoes and covered it with yellow and orange tomatoes that were nearly ripe. That way I wouldn’t miss any on the bottom layer ripening because the top layer was sure to ripen first.
- I stacked the boxes (alternating their direction) with the ones that were the closest to being ready on the top. I stored them on a shelf in the hallway (where I walk past a million times a day). With a cool, dry climate (our basement dwelling was perfect), tomatoes are less-likely to spoil.
- Some people say they shouldn’t be touching, but that would be a ridiculous prospect for the number of tomatoes we had. We have not had any problems with tomatoes going bad or not ripening evenly.
Use your ripe tomatoes
Every few days (or once a week), I would gather up the red tomatoes, and consolidate and re-sort the others. I washed the cherry tomatoes and put them in the plastic clam shells that we save from store-bought tomatoes and strawberries. My husband and daughter love these in their lunches. Pre-washed cherry tomatoes are a quick healthy addition to cold lunches or as snacks.
Some of the regular-sized tomatoes are used fresh on sandwiches or in salads. I freeze the rest. I wash, core and freeze them in gallon bags to can as tomato puree (for use in homemade tomato sauce or soup later). It just takes a few minutes (no scalding or peeling). Freezing the tomatoes as they ripen allows me to do all the canning at once instead of spreading the mess and work out.
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Hi Stephanie, I had lots of green tomatoes on my plants that didn’t ripen before the frost hit and found a recipe to make Green Tomato Bread. If you didn’t know it was green tomatoes you would think it was zucchini bread. I also made some green tomato salsa – it used apple cider vinegar so it had that sweet/tang taste and I used it over eggs for breakfast one morning but I think it’s more suited to an appetizer like over a block of cream cheese served with crackers. I went out of town and most of them had ripened so I will make some salsa but I still had some green ones left over and made a couple more loaves last night and will freeze to give out as Christmas gifts with some flavored butters. Anyway, just a couple of thoughts for you!
Thanks for the green tomato ideas Teresa! Between letting them ripen and all the recipes to try with green tomatoes, there really isn’t any reason to let them go to waste!
Such a good idea Stephanie!! I hate that I can’t garden year-round, but it will be nice to have tomatoes into the late fall this season. I will definitely be pinning this idea!
It is so nice to have fresh tomatoes through the fall and the first part of winter! Cherry tomatoes are perfect to put in sack lunches!
i keep talking about having a garden full of tomatoes. We usually compromise on 4 plants in buckets.
I have yet to be able to get the plants to make it through the August heat, but love the tomatoes while we can.
This is a great tutorial –
Thanks for sharing
Thanks Lisa! Tomatoes are one of my husband’s things out of the garden, so planting lots is always a must for us. If you have the in-ground space for them, the tomatoes will probably last longer in the ground. They are really good at putting down deep roots. Also, watering them well (not just on the surface, but really deep) every other day or every three days will help force the roots deeper. The deep roots will help them get the water they deep when it’s hot and dry. Good luck next year!
This is a great tutorial! I have kept green tomatoes through early winter by wrapping the larger ones in newspaper to store. They did keep well and it was a nice treat. Your tomatoes look great too! Ours got hit twice first by Leaf Spot and then Late Blight because of the cold wet weather…no nice green tomatoes to choose from!
Thanks Nancy! I’ve read about people wrapping tomatoes in newspaper. Was it a pain to have to peek at the individually to check if they were ripe? That’s sad that your tomatoes were hit hard this year. There’s always next year, right?