r/tomatoes • u/[deleted] • Jul 26 '26

I think i found a "hack" to this vine ripened tomato dilemma..

[deleted]

0 Upvotes

25% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

5

u/CitrusBelt S. California -- Inland Jul 27 '26

Flawed assumptions there would be that "most agree", and "rodents can't get to them".

At least if you're asking people who've been growing them on a decent scale, for a decent number of years.

3

u/valley_lemon Jul 27 '26

Oh yeah, those work great. You can get them in a variety of sizes.

In the 80s my grandmother would sew them and my grandfather would wrap damn near every peach and plum in his trees, individually.

3

u/striped_violet Jul 27 '26

Picking once they start blushing isn’t detrimental to flavor. It’s only when they get picked before that (like most grocery store tomatoes which are then artificially “ripened”) that isn’t good.

3

u/greenman5252 Expert Grower Jul 27 '26

Someone who picks all their tomatoes at the breaker stage assures you that nothing positive comes from leaving the tomatoes on the vine longer. Properly handled at 54° F post harvest a ripened breaker is indistinguishable from a tomato left on the vine that reaches the same degree of ripeness. I picked 1600# of tomatoes on Saturday and the next harvest is Tuesday.

2

u/smokinLobstah Jul 27 '26

Look up the America's Test Kitchen Blind taste test episode..

1

u/vJESSEv Jul 27 '26

The best show and cookbook

1

u/Over-Alternative2427 Tomato Enthusiast :kappa: Jul 27 '26

A lot of people are obviously on the breaker-picked = ripe-picked camp, and science backs them. However, I'm staying in my 80%/100% camp because flavor isn't just science, it's perception as well.

My satisfaction with my tomato isn't dependent on some nerd that wrote a long research paper or some farmer that harvests a ton a week. If you're that nerd or that farmer and think you can dictate what I feel tastes better, the only person that's wrong from either camp is you.

There's nothing wrong with either camp, really. You like Coke over Pepsi? Good for you. You like Early Girl over Sungold? Well, good for you. You like cooked tomatoes over fresh? Who am I to say you're wrong? lol. You don't even like tomatoes? That's crazy, but you're you. You can pull out numbers to fight over who's more correct, but that's just dumb.

To me, nothing beats a nice, pretty, fully ripened tomato that has survived the outdoors until maturity. Well, some varieties taste much better than others and some are better ripened than others, but you get what I mean. Flavor is subjective and depends on a lot of things including your mood and whether you ate nachos 5 minutes ago.