How we Ripened Tomatoes in our Northern American State

At Lakehousechocolate.com, we are invested in supporting our local community with donations from Heirloom Organic seeded tomatoes. We seek to share what we learn and give what we grow. We topped 225 Lbs, for the season, of donated product.

So what are common methods that we used to ripen tomatoes that were planted late? Simple:

1) Harvest them in the green state?

We laid a dozen green and yellow bananas and apples in a box and piled the green tomatoes on top. That worked! Within a week, the Golden Jubilee’s were ripe! The cherries and Romas also popped color.

2) We set a fall grow tent on top of under ripe tomatoe beds and heated them to ideal ripening conditions. Throughout the day, we looked for signs of pink. If they had any color, we picked them immediately. The fruits set an order, and would ripen the next one, only after the big sister was plucked.

We read up on ideal tomato ripening conditions. They included 70F-80F degrees during the day and no less than 50F degrees at night and no more than 80% humidity. That temporary greenhouse offered the solution. Someone had to monitor and maintain conditions. Oddly, I had the time to check on them. Within a day, we found pinkish areas of the massive babies and moved them into the hyper ripe banana /apple boxes.

This was by far the most exciting to watch, but semi- intense.

In the morning, we waited till each tent hit 75 degrees, then opened flaps to enable even temperatures. Some never hit 75, while others hit it upon dawn. It was somewhat nerve wrecking to constantly monitor the tent set.

We bought $11 worth of hydrometers to help monitor Temperature and Humidity. As long as we kept the gauges in the shade, in the tent, they were helpful to monitor the conditions.

3) Yank and replant under ripe tomatoes into an Indoor grow tent?

Nope, it was heartbreaking to rip them out of the ground, but with frost threatening to ruin the entire crop, we gave the method a try.

Within 4 days we had pink! Yep, that worked.

4) Cut the water! To encourage ripening, we cut the water and used this gage to ensure we didn’t enter the dry soil state.

We irrigated our plants with drip lines and watered 3 times a day. We researched that 8 is the magic number of waterings per day, but 3 seems to work for us. We continued to learn about watering and still saw some cracks in a wet spell. With newly added grow tents, we could control the moisture levels. We don’t expect them anymore.