There is nothing better than fresh tomatoes grown in your own garden. Still, they are not as enjoyable when they have tough skins.
So, why do tomatoes have tough skins? Tomatoes can develop tough skin in dry conditions (drought or under watering) or due to excessive heat, intense sunlight, or certain diseases (like anthracnose and curly top virus). Certain tomato varieties (like Roma or plum tomatoes) are bred to have thicker skins to resist damage from insects.
Although there are lots of ways that tomatoes can develop tough skins, there are also ways to prevent it from happening.
In this article, we’ll talk about why tomatoes have tough skins and how to prevent tough skins on tomatoes. We’ll also talk about what you can do about tomatoes with thick skins if you have already harvested them.
Let’s get going.
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Why Do My Tomatoes Have Tough Skins?
There are several different reasons that tomatoes can develop tough skins, including:
- Lack of water (from drought conditions or under watering)
- Excessive heat (along with dry weather)
- Intense Sunlight (tomatoes can get sunburn!)
- Diseases (Anthracnose or Curly Top Virus)
- Variety (some are naturally thick-skinned)
Let’s start off with heat, since this is a common cause of tough tomato skins.
Tough Tomato Skins Caused By Lack Of Water
Often, tomatoes develop tough skins in dry weather. When soil lacks moisture, the plant cannot absorb enough water through its roots.
Lack of water makes the plant more susceptible to extreme heat. This affects the entire plant, including the fruit.
A thick, leathery skin develops as a defense against dry conditions and intense sunlight (thick skins are less likely to get damaged by heat and light)
To avoid thick skin due to dry soil, keep your tomato plants watered. Apply mulch over the soil to help retain moisture, if necessary. A drip irrigation system will also help to keep soil moist but not soaking wet.
No matter what, it is a good idea to monitor the soil and check moisture levels. You can do this by feeling the soil with your fingers (dig down a few inches to see how it feels):
- If the soil feels dusty or dry, you need to water thoroughly right away to prevent damage!
- If the soil is a little dry, you should still water a bit to help avoid thick skins and blossom end rot (more on this later).
- If the soil is still damp or soaked, there is no need to add more water.
Also, be sure to watch the weather forecast carefully. If a rainstorm is coming soon, you might be able to hold off on watering dry soil.
Tough Tomato Skins Caused By Heat
In some cases, tomatoes will develop tough skins in response to environmental conditions besides drought. This is one way the tomato fruit defends itself against the elements.
Image from: https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tomato.jpg
According to the New Mexico State University Extension, hot and dry weather sometimes leads to tough skin on tomato fruit, making it almost like leather. Although the fruit may ripen completely, the skin will be thick in response to high heat, lack of water, or a combination of the two.
In other cases, extreme heat will cause the fruit to ripen unevenly or incompletely. The ideal temperature for ripening tomatoes is 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (21 to 24 degrees Celsius).
When temperatures rise into the 80’s and 90’s Fahrenheit, tomato ripening slows down quite a bit. You can learn more about why tomatoes fail to ripen in my article here.
Another cause of thick skin is lack of proper ripening. This leads to tough spots on a tomato’s skin.
This is especially common on the top part of the fruit. You can sometimes see this as green or yellow “shoulders” on the top of the tomato.
According to the University of Missouri:
“These yellow areas never ripen properly and the tissue below them is tough and poorly flavored.”
https://ipm.missouri.edu/meg/2012/8/Hot-Weather-Tomato-Problems/
This happens when chlorophyll (which makes tomatoes green at first) is not replaced by lycopene and carotene (which are pigments that make tomatoes reddish-orange). When it is too hot, tomatoes stop producing lycopene and carotene – which slows down or stops the ripening process.
Think about immature green tomatoes versus ripe red tomatoes. The red ones tend to be softer, whereas the green ones tend to be firm. A lack of proper ripening caused by excessive heat will leave your tomatoes with thick skin.
To avoid excessive heat for your tomato plants, try giving them some shade during the hottest part of the day. You can do this with shade cloth, which can provide 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) or more of heat protection.
You can learn more about shade cloth in my article here.
You can also see my illustration of ideal temperature ranges for tomato plants here.
Tough Tomato Skins Caused By Intense Sunlight
Tomato plants need direct sun to grow properly, but intense sunlight can also lead to tough skin on your tomatoes. One way this happens is when strong sunlight raises the temperature of the fruit itself.
As mentioned earlier, excessive heat can lead to tough skins on tomatoes, and intense sunlight makes this problem even worse.
Intense sunlight can also cause direct damage tomato skins by burning them. This condition is called sunscald, and it is similar to the way we can get blisters from sunburn.
According to the University of Maryland Extension:
“Large, light-colored blistered areas develop on the sides of fruits facing the sun.”
https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/sunscald-vegetables
The blistered areas caused by sunscald are white or tan, and they become a tough spot on the skin of the fruit.
According to Purdue University, sunscald is more likely on tomato plants that were over pruned or whose leaves were damaged by insects or disease. Without enough leaves to block out some of the sunlight, these plants become more susceptible to sunscald.
As mentioned earlier, shade cloth is a good way to protect tomato plants from the sun and heat in the height of summer.
Image from:
Wikimedia Commons,
courtesy of T. R. Shankar Raman: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RJDRP_Nursery_DSC0282.jpg
You can find knitted 30% shade cloth (such as this 10 foot by 100 foot length) from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
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Tough Tomato Skins Caused By Diseases
Certain diseases (such as Anthracnose and Curly Top Virus) can also cause tough skins on tomato fruit.
Anthracnose
Anthracnose is a fungus that causes the fruit on a tomato plant to rot. Luckily, Anthracnose affects only the fruit – it does not affect the leaves, stems, or roots of the plant.
As a result, you can keep growing healthy tomatoes if you remove infected fruit. You can either compost the fruit or feed it to your chickens after cutting away the fungus.
According to the Michigan State University Extension, fruit infected by Anthracnose has:
“tan, bubbled patches of leathery skin, both on green and red tomato fruit.”
https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/tomato_anthracnose_when_those_prized_ripe_tomatoes_go_bad
Anthracnose is more likely to affect damaged fruit, so avoid accidental cutting or bruising of your tomatoes when handling the plants or harvesting the fruit. Anthracnose is not unique to tomato plants, and it can affect other garden vegetables as well.
To prevent Anthracnose, avoid watering plants from overhead. Keep the fruit and leaves dry by watering at the base of the plant with a hose or drip irrigation system, rather than using a sprinkler.
Curly Top Virus
Curly Top Virus is a disease that is transmitted by the beet leaf hopper. Curly Top Virus affects the whole plant, and there is no known cure.
This disease will often cause the leaves to turn yellow and the plant to stop growing. The fruit may also ripen prematurely and develop a bitter taste and tough, leathery skin.
According to the Utah State University Extension:
“Sugar beet is a common host and may serve as a virus reservoir.”
https://extension.usu.edu/pests/ipm/notes_ag/veg-curly-top-of-tomato
So, be careful if you are planting beets in the garden – especially near tomatoes!
Since there is no cure for Curly Top Virus, your best bet is to remove and destroy any infected plants to prevent beet leaf hoppers from spreading the virus.
Blossom End Rot
This is not really a disease, but rather a disorder caused by problems with calcium and water uptake. According to the University of Minnesota, blossom end rot can affect tomato plants and cause tough patches that turn brown or black.
Follow the tips listed above to monitor soil moisture and water properly to prevent blossom end rot.
Tough Tomato Skins Due To Variety
Some tomato varieties have thicker skins than others. For example, Roma tomatoes and San Marzano tomatoes (a type of plum tomato) are naturally thick-skinned. As a result, they tend to resist cracking.
Another example is the Cherry Ember cherry tomato variety from Cornell. It has thicker skin to resist cracking that is common in cherry tomatoes.
Sometimes, thick skin on tomatoes is by design. Tomato growers who sell to supermarkets want thicker skins, since this improves a tomato’s ability to survive shipping in good shape.
If you want tomatoes with thinner skins, try some heirloom varieties. According Johnny’s Selected Seeds, many heirloom tomatoes have thinner skin (at the expense of being more likely to split).
Cherokee Purple tomatoes are one heirloom variety with thin skin. As with most thin-skinned tomato varieties, they are prone to cracking.
Image from: https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cherokee.purple.jpg
(You can find Cherokee Purple tomato seeds on Johnny’s Selected Seeds).
Although heirloom varieties tend to have thinner skins, there are still some hybrid tomatoes with thin skin.
For example, Burpee’s Brandy Boy is an indeterminate hybrid tomato that has thin skin and a flavor similar to the familiar Brandywine tomato.
(You can find Brandy Boy tomatoes on the Burpee website).
How Do You Soften The Skin On Tomatoes?
Sometimes, it is too late in the season to save some of the first tomatoes that ripened. They already have thick skins, for one reason or another.
Is there any way to salvage them? Here’s what to do with tomatoes with tough skins: skin them and cook them!
First, boil some water in a pot on the stove, and fill a container (or your sink) with cool water.
Next, when the water is boiling, toss the tomatoes in the pot and leave them in the water for 2 or 3 minutes. (The water might temporarily stop boiling, which is ok – the heat will still loosen up the skins).
Then, take the tomatoes out of the pot put them in cool water (either in the sink or container).
Finally, when the tomatoes have cooled off enough, use a knife to peel them. Cut out the stem part on top of the tomato, and peel the skin off.
Once you have peeled the skin off of your tomatoes, you can turn them into pasta sauce, pizza sauce, chili, or any other tomato-based dish.
You can also can your tomatoes, either with a pressure-canner or with a boiling water bath (you will need glass jars either way). You can learn more about how to can tomatoes safely from the Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Conclusion
Now you have a better idea of why your tomatoes have tough skins and what you can do to prevent it. You also have some ideas for what to do with tomatoes that have skins that are too thick to enjoy eating them raw.
You might also want to read my article on why tomatoes grow deformed.
I hope you found this article helpful. If so, please share it with someone who can use the information.
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~Jonathon