On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 2:42:03 PM UTC-7, Kay Lancaster wrote:
On Wed, 14 Aug 2013 10:13:27 -0400, Gus wrote:

"songbird" wrote in message

...

Higgs Boson wrote:

...

Sorry, don't understand. Could you explain.. you're putting picked

fruit on newspapers or...?



spread out newspapers in a place where they won't be

disturbed (out of the direct sun and in a place that

doesn't get hot or frozen).



place the green tomatoes on the newspapers with some

space in between each fruit (so they don't touch).



eventually some of them will turn red. some will rot.

that's just how it goes.



we did this last season with quite a few tomatoes that

did not finish on the vine, but they came along eventually

and we still ate or canned them.



yes, the flavor is not as good as vine ripened, but it

is still acceptable and worth it instead of paying for

tomatoes.



the way the weather is going this season we might have

a garage full of them...





songbird





This has been my experience, some turn red eventually a few get mushy

and rot... I've been putting them in a paper bag with a ripe tomato,

but it doesn't seem to really speed ripening up much. My dad used to

pick a bunch of green tomatoes in the fall before frost, and he would

have 2-3 dozen green ones in the basement which did not get much light.

Most of them turned red over a few weeks. I don't remember many bad

ones; he just laid them out without putting them in bags.



The ones that don't rot immediately were ones without bumps, bruises and

systemic infections.



Back when the USDA's tomato germplasm collection was held at the Ames PI station,

they would grow out some for increase every year. Most of the seed went back into

the germplasm collection, but they'd gather up a bunch of "perfect" tomatoes from the

plants and put them in a shed with long benches full of damp sand, and let them rot.

(yes, it stunk! such is the price of science! g) They'd note which ones rotted first,

second, last... and the lasts often went into the search for a long lived storage

tomato.


Kay

Fascinating! How long ago was this? Where can I read up about it?

TIA

HB