TOMATO--FRUIT OR VEGETABLE?
Botanically speaking, the tomato you eat is a fruit. So is a watermelon,
green pepper, eggplant, cucumber, and squash. A "fruit" is any fleshy material
covering a seed or seeds.
Horticulturally speaking, the tomato is a vegetable plant. The plant
is an annual and nonwoody. Most fruits, from a horticulture perspective,
are grown on a woody plant (apples, cherries, raspberries, oranges) with
the exception of strawberries.
In 1893, the United States Supreme Court ruled the tomato was a "vegetable"
and therefore subject to import taxes. The suit was brought by a consortium
of growers who wanted it declared a vegetable to protect U.S. crop development
and prices. Fruits, at that time, were not subjected to import taxes and
foreign countries could flood the market with lower priced produce. (A
hundred years really hasn't changed anything.)
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Ripening Tomatoes
Tomato plants pulled just before the first early fall frost will ripen
all nearly mature fruits if hung upside down in a cool closet. Before hanging
remove all fruits that have not reached the glistening skin stage.
They are too green to count on, but they make good pickles.
Adapted from: Gardening Short
Cuts
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