Long Storage Life Tomatoes
 

This subject comes up from time-to-time. It's one that I am very interested in. I'm writing this on August 4 because on July 3, I picked some tomatoes. Every year, I do storage life experiments. There are right ways of storing them and wrong ways, but I think about how everyday non-gardener Jane/Joe might store them.

There is the refrigerator thought. I don't know if any of you buy the little tubs of cherry tomatoes, but it says right on the package "Do Not Refrigerate". The same tomatoes are sold in little tubs with the tomatoes stacked on top of each other. So, I'm guessing that people might be storing their tomatoes that way on a countertop. So why not mimic that even though I know better.

Well, I did just that.

[B]Cupid F1[/B]
[B]Indigo Ruby[/B]

Those hold up just fine. Today, I ate a plate of the ones I collected a month ago, and they taste just as good as if they were just picked.

I'm hoping you all add to this list.

Cool.

Black Beauty and Pakenham Pear stored pretty well for me in 2017. I'm trying Black Beauty again this year, but I have a feeling both of my plants this year are crosses (though different crosses than each other; one is a cross for sure: probably with the Sweetie cherry tomato).

Anthocyanin on the skin is supposed to improve storage life.

Well, many hybrids have quite good shelf life. Tastyno F1 (a very sweet cherry, somewhat crunchy) had really good life, like 3 month easy in the summer on the shelf.

The problem is not to expect good taste for fresh eating all this time, anything over one week of top taste is extraordinary.


This year I'm trialing various spanish tomatoes with long shelf life, it seems odd they haven't gotten more attention. Some have incredible vigour, and are also multiflora, so perfect for one stem growing. Very thick skin unfortunately is to be expected, the way they use these traditionally is to rub it on bread, and discard the rest, so the thick skin isn't really a problem for them.
Bombeta and Pequenito, one can see some pictures around the forum, seem similar in pictures of the fruit, but are quite different in leaf, and also Bombeta is a lot less shelf-lify, it manages to ripen in like a week, Pequenito is still not ripe after about 3 weeks from blush. Pequenito is also larger (about 1 oz) and also has a very pronounced pointy end.

Spanish "de colgar" tomatoes, which literally means "tomatoes for hanging" will last three months traditionally hung on a string. The same goes for "Ramallet" tomatoes from Mallorca: [url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=48330[/url]. There are a number of varieties of both. [url]http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=47925&highlight=Colgar[/url]


Steve

I don't usually store a lot of tomatoes but when I have the one that stood out for lasting the longest was Arkansas Traveler. It is also one of the better fall tomatoes so when I get an early freeze it is usually one that I have some still on the vine that may need to be stored. It is the only open pollinated or heirloom variety that I have noticed having good storage life but I'm sure there are others besides just the hybrids.

Bill