Ripe Tomatoes

We all know what it is like to purchase that perfect red tomato at the grocery store, only to go home and find the inside hard and tasteless. The best way to get a beautiful, flavorful, perfect tomato is to grow it in your garden. If you are lucky enough to have homegrown tomatoes, you need to be sure to pick them at their peak for maximum flavor and texture, before nature’s pests take a bite.

It takes patience to wait for a tomato to ripen because it will reach full size long before it absorbs all the nutrients necessary to give it that perfect color, taste, and texture. Tomatoes ripen from the inside out, so the center will be riper than the skin. Commercial tomatoes are picked green and shipped in refrigerated trucks. Once they are removed from the vine, they will ripen to hard and pink with no flavor. The longer the tomato remains on the plant, the better the taste. So, pick your tomatoes when they are fully colored and slightly soft to the touch. The more you pick, the more the plants will produce. It is a good idea to remove any unwanted and smaller tomatoes from the vine to save nutrients for the more prized tomatoes.

After you pick the tomatoes at the correct stage, they should be kept at room temperature with the stem up to maintain their flavor and prevent bruising. Fully ripe tomatoes can be stored in the refrigerator to keep from spoiling, but will lose some flavor and nutrients. The best flavored tomato will be picked from the vine as soon as it is fully red and slightly soft, and eaten immediately.