ripening

The Ripeness is All (or Some)

Maryland Grows4 Comments

As Dr. Spock famously said about parenting: “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” This is equally true about gardening, even for beginners. People sometimes ask me when they should pick vegetables, as if it was a total mystery, and I generally reply that they’ll know it when they see it, especially if it’s a crop that’s commonly available in markets and grocery stores. If not, a quick online search or a look at the seed packet or catalog may enlighten you. Yours may not achieve the shiny perfection of the catalog models, but it’ll be recognizable. There are exceptions to this easy-to-tell model (melons are notoriously enigmatic) but mostly it’s not so hard.

Being ready to pick and eat, however, is not the same thing as being ripe, and this is a matter of great confusion among even some experienced gardeners, so I’ll plant a few ideas here that might help. Or make you more confused. I don’t know, I can’t think in this heat either.

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The green tomato dilemma; or, will this fruit get any riper?

Maryland GrowsLeave a comment

I was reminded on social media this morning of an article published back in June by John Porter on the Garden Professors blog. It’s about which fruits (some of which are vegetables in a culinary sense) continue to ripen after being harvested, and which don’t. Using more scientific words, which are climacteric and which are non-climacteric. There’s a useful list — bookmark it!

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Unripe Siberian kiwis in May

I referred to that list this summer to confirm that kiwis are among the fruits that will continue to ripen once picked. I have three Siberian kiwi plants (Actinidia kolomikta), two female and one male, and the females have been producing their tiny little fruits fairly bountifully. The problem with these kiwis, though, is that they don’t all ripen at once, and when they do ripen, the fruits tend to go from hard to soft quickly and then fall off. I’ve taken to checking the relative softness whenever I pass under the arbor during fruiting season, plucking off the ripe ones and popping them into my mouth.

So I thought, hm, what if I pick all the fruits once some have started ripening, and let them finish indoors? And, as indicated by kiwi’s climacteric status, it worked. Sort of. I have to say that the indoor-ripened fruits just weren’t as tasty. They’d be okay for jam, though, so perhaps next year that’s what I’ll do.

So what does this have to do with the tomatoes in the title? Continue reading →