May Farm Tour Photos / Farm Work Day Info

Farm News

September 26, 2007

Last week I received and email from a customer who was concerned about the ripeness of the tomatoes that she had received in her box. I response to her and Georgette mentioned that there was a lot of questions addressed to the office about this issues.

Our goal is to deliver fruit that always arrives in perfect condition but there are several issues that go along with that. The main problem is that when dead ripe fruit is shipped in generally gets damaged along the way and nobody wants to receive damaged fruit. What we do for all of our tomatoes is harvest them off of the vine when they are still about 20-30% green. At this stage in a tomatoes life it has entered the natural ripening process and will continue to ripen with or without being attached to the vine.

Tomatoes received from Mexico are harvested dead green and hard as a rock, cooled in a hydro cooler, shipped to a final destination. They are then put into a large room filled with ethylene gas to force the tomato to "ripen" (all it does is make them turn red, that is why they taste so horrible), without this process the tomatoes would stay green and hard until it began to decompose. They do this for logistic reasons and it could be weeks (up to 6 weeks) from the time the tomato is harvested from the time the tomato is put into the gas box to be turned red.

The definition of a vine ripened tomato is one that ripens naturally, and it only needs to be on the vine until is starts to ripen, it can then finish the ripening process off of the vine (I have done taste tests to see if you can taste the difference from one that was left on the fine until it was dead ripe compared to one that was harvested at 50% green and ripened on my kitchen counter - in my opinion they were the same flavor and texture). All of the tomatoes you buy at the supermarket at one point were like the tomatoes you received in your box but the produce managers keep them in the back until they are perfectly ripe or they put them on the display and as they ripen customers buy them.

When you receive tomatoes that are still green leave them at room temperature and they will continue to ripen to the perfect tomato. I know is seems a little backwards. You do need to be sure that you never put them into the refrigerator, if you do this the tomatoes won't ripen and somehow the cold temperature causes the tomatoes to become soft and mealy. The magic number is 49 degrees F, never let a tomato get below that.

Take care and enjoy your tomatoes this week, we are getting to the end of the season. -Thaddeus

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Jun 6, 2007
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May 30, 2007
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May 23, 2007
Summer Smells -Thaddeus

May 9, 2007
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April 4, 2007
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March 28, 2007
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March 21,2007
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March 12, 2007
Spring Gobbles - Thaddeus

March 7, 2007
Spring Time - Thaddeus

February 26, 2007
Summer Food Please - Thaddeus

February 19, 2007
Peach Blossoms and Arundo Burning - Thaddeus

February 12, 2007
Chris Leaves - Thaddeus

January 31, 2007
Heart Attack- Thaddeus

January 24, 2007
Turkeys Can Fly- Thaddeus

January 10, 2007
Live the Seasons- Freeman

January 1, 2007
Happy New Year Thaddeus

Nov 29, 2006
Organic? - Thaddeus

Nov 15, 2006
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Nov 1, 2006
Canal Dries Up - Thaddeus

Oct 25, 2006
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Oct 18,2006
New Database - Thaddeus

Oct 11,2006
Rain, Sweet Rain - Thaddeus

Oct 4, 2006
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Sept 27, 2006
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Sept 20, 2006
Clean Produce - Thaddeus

Sept. 13, 2006
Cools Coming - Thaddeus

December 12, 2005
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December 5, 2005
Au Revoir, Automnal - Noah