25 August 2008
Good advice?
Despairing of my green tomatoes, I looked to Saint Flowerdew for guidance who told me that, “The first green fruits can be helped to redden by an over-ripe banana placed nearby.”
My patio now has a number of slowly rotting bananas sitting among the tomato plants. And resolutely green tomatoes.
Filed under: Dos & Don'ts, Today's Bible — Clare @ 11:37 am
That’s a rather sad picture
(25.08.08 @ 4:09 pm)
Er….You have to pick the tomatoes first!
Bananas give off Ethylene as they ripen, and this gas also just happens to be a main ripening accelerant for other fruit as well.
Normally you pick the stubborn green tomatoes and put them in a brown paper bag with a banana…or at least on a dish in the window sill where they are exposed to the the vapours…..your ethylene is just going up into the ether.
I hate to sound sniggery, but the mental image of bananas all round the pots…. he he!
(25.08.08 @ 9:11 pm)
Yep, Greenmantle’s got it nailed. Having said that, I have heard of people putting banana skins around the bases of roses as fertiliser and to ward off black spot – although I have no idea if the latter works.
(26.08.08 @ 10:59 am)
Oh! well, in my defence, Sir Bob certainly does not make that at all clear. “Nearby”, he says, so that’s what I did. D’oh!
(26.08.08 @ 11:10 am)