How to store tomatoes at home
Summer in central Our Country is short. How to preserve the crop of tomatoes at home, including unripe ones? This can be done in different ways, it all depends on your capabilities.

There are several options for storing tomatoes. And they are all equally good.

In the boxes

For this option, fully formed fruits of green or white color are suitable (not brown and not red!). Moreover, they need to be collected as early as possible: if the air temperature outside drops below 5 ° C, they will never ripen.

The box is better to take low. The bottom is lined with clean white thick paper. On it is a layer of peat (1), sphagnum moss or coniferous sawdust: they all contain natural antiseptics that protect tomatoes from rotting. The fruits themselves are rubbed with vodka before storage to disinfect.

On top of the peat (etc.), the first layer of fruits is laid – buttocks up and so that they do not touch each other. From above they are again covered with peat, moss or sawdust. Next – 2 layers of tomatoes. Again a layer of “powder”. A maximum of 3 layers can be put in a box. After that, the box is covered with a lattice lid.

You can store tomatoes in boxes without additional tricks – just put them in boxes in 1 – 2 layers and put them in a cool room with a temperature of 10 – 12 ° C and an air humidity of 80 – 85% (2). At the same time, it is important that the fruits are whole, without dents and signs of disease, especially phytophthora (3).

In banks

For this method, liter jars are best suited. But the fruits must be medium-sized in order to crawl into the neck.

Banks must be sterilized and dried. Then 100 g of mustard powder is poured onto the bottom, and parchment paper is placed on top of it. Then the container is filled to the top with washed dry tomatoes and rolled up with a metal lid.

Instead of mustard powder, you can take powdered aspirin – 1 g per liter jar.

In baskets

Surely many housewives have a wicker basket at home, or even more than one. So tomatoes can be stored in them. Everything is very simple: newsprint (and even better black, if you find it) is moistened in vodka or alcohol, dried and wrapped in tomatoes – each fruit separately. And then they put them in baskets.

in paraffin

Put a paraffin candle in a small saucepan and melt it. Then, literally for a second, tomatoes are lowered into hot liquid paraffin, waiting for the paraffin to harden – a crust forms. After that, the fruits can be folded into boxes, baskets or put in the refrigerator.

With onion or garlic

Both of these vegetables secrete phytoncides, which have a disinfecting effect. Therefore, unripe tomatoes can be folded into any container mixed with onions in a ratio of 1: 1 and so stored at home.

On the bushes

Before the onset of autumn frosts, you can pull out the bushes from the beds along with the fruits and hang them in a cool room with a temperature of 12 – 14 ° C. In this case, the fruits often even gain additional mass due to the outflow of nutrients from their shoots and leaves (1).

Option without tricks

And can tomatoes lie for a long time without tricky tricks? They can – they will lie quietly for 1 – 2 months, if two main storage conditions are observed: temperature and humidity. Humidity should be 85 – 90%. But the temperature is different for each stage of fruit ripeness.

  • for white fruits – 8 – 10 ° С.
  • for brown and pink – 4 – 6 ° С.
  • for red, yellow, brown (in a word, ripe ones) – 1 – 2 ° С.

Fruits of varying degrees of maturity should be stored in different containers.

How to Dazarite Tomatoes

Probably everyone has heard about dosing. This is also a kind of storage, only not with a slowdown, but with an acceleration of maturation. It is used when there are too many large, but still pale or brown tomatoes on the bushes, and not today there will be frost tomorrow.

In this case, the fruits are plucked and placed in boxes, just on a free table or even on the floor. Tomatoes should be in a bright room at a temperature of 20 – 25 ° C. Under such conditions, they will ripen in 30 – 40 days. To speed up the process, several ripe fruits can be placed on unripe tomatoes: they release ethylene, under the influence of which the tomatoes quickly reach the desired condition.

Popular questions and answers

We talked about storing tomatoes with agronomist-breeder Svetlana Mikhailova She answered the most pressing questions.

What varieties of tomatoes keep the longest?

There are several varieties and hybrids that are able to store right up to the New Year. These include: Blues F1, Viscount F1, Giraffe, Intuition F1, Cartouche F1, Hummingbird F1, Slugger F1, Ostrich F1, Long Keeper, Master, New Year’s, Khutorskoy pickling. However, their taste often leaves much to be desired, and some seeds germinate inside the fruit during storage.

Where is it better to store tomatoes – in the room or in the refrigerator?

Ripe or slightly unripe tomatoes definitely need to be stored in the refrigerator, because the optimal storage temperature for them is 4-6 ° C. But the green ones should lie in the room – this is the only way they can catch up. If you send them to the refrigerator, and then get them, they will never ripen.

Can you freeze tomatoes?

Can. To do this, they need to be cut into pieces, laid out in a single layer on plates or cutting boards and sent to the freezer for several hours. When the tomatoes are well frozen, they can be poured in portions into bags or containers.

 

Frozen tomatoes can be used to make sauces, gravy, goulash or borscht.

Sources of

  1. Gavrish S.F. Tomatoes // M.: NIIOZG, publishing house “Scriptorium 2000”, 2003 – 184 p.
  2. A group of authors, ed. Polyanskoy A.M. and Chulkova E.I. Tips for gardeners // Minsk, Harvest, 1970 – 208 p.
  3. Ilyin O.V. and a group of authors. Vegetable grower’s guide // M.: Rosselkhokhizdat, 1979 – 224 p.

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