Tomatoes with green shoulders
Green
shoulders are the most purely cosmetic problem I'll discuss. I
have certain tomato varieties --- notably this yellow roma and our
pear-shaped "black" tomato --- that ripen the bottom two
thirds of the fruit quickly, but leave the top third green. My
solution, as usual, is to cut off the tops
and give them to the chickens, but I was interested to discover there's
a reason for the green shoulders.
Green shoulders form
when tomatoes deal with high temperatures and
strong sunlight during ripening. The light and heat prompt the
fruits to retain
chlorophyll around the stem area, and the "shoulders" often become hard
and leathery.
Unless you've pruned
excessively and removed leaves that would normally
shade your fruits, you haven't done anything to cause green
shoulders. And there's not much you can do to fix the "problem"
either, short of ripening your tomatoes indoors or choosing a different
variety. This is definitely one of those times I'm glad not to be
a market gardener whose customers demand blemish-free fruit.
| This post is part of our Minor Tomato Ailments lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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