How To Ripen Tomatoes

So if everything has gone to plan your tomato plants have grown strongly in their pots or grow bags, but then even in a hot sunny Summer you can find that whilst the tomatoes have reached the right size that they simply refuse to ripen and go red no matter how sunny it is. Tomatoes not ripening happens to even the most skilled of gardeners, and no matter how long you have been growing them at some point you will have a crop of tomatoes not ripening.

So what do you if your tomatoes do not ripen?

Well there are numerous old wives tails as to how to ripen tomatoes, so here is a list of ones to try: -

Note in every one of the following cases you should ensure that they tomatoes are kept free from moisture and not touching each other, as if they get damp and/or are touching each other, then disease or mildew can ruin all of them within a couple of days. Do not forget this tip when ripening tomatoes!

Place the green tomatoes inside on a sunny window, spaced apart from each other and with good sunlight they should begin to ripen in 3-5 days.

Or place the tomatoes in an old egg tray on the windowsill with the skin of an old banana next to them. The scent given off from the banana skin will ripen the tomatoes in no time at all, due to a chemical reaction between the scent of the banana skin and the tomatoes.

An alternative to this is to place the tomatoes in a shoebox spaced apart with the banana skin alongside them and place the lid on the box, however whilst I have heard of this method and can see that it traps the scent of the banana skin in the box, I do believe in the method that combines the banana skin with sunlight to ripen the tomatoes.

Yet a further method is to ripen them by placing them in a brown paper bag with a banana skin in with them and placing them in a drawer, however I do not use this method as I think it risks the tomatoes getting disease and damp problems. Anyhow I hope that one of the above methods of how to ripen tomatoes works for you.

By Richard Allen -

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