Before the first frost I had to pull a lot of tomatoes that were green. I bought two bananas, put everything on a lined tray and put it all on a paper bag and the back of the cabinet. Over 2kg of late harvest ripe tomatoes grown from seeds I got at the library for free. Though I did have to buy bananas.
Cost: 59¢
Never thought of the idea of using bananas to ripen. Do they make a lot of difference?
It makes the difference between ripe in a week vs green compost in three.
Plums and tomatoes do it too. Throw em in a paper bag with what you want to ripen.
I’d imagine they are so heavily doused in ethylene or whatever else is used these days, that it continues to evaporate from the peel and affects other produce…would be nice to hear an answer from OP though
Doused? No. Not everything is a conspiracy.
It’s a natural thing already in the bananas. Evaporate? No. Offgas.
If you put green or barely ripe bananas in there you will get almost zero difference from a control group with no banana. You have to wait for the banana to ripen so that it starts putting out the ethylene on its own as part of the ripening process. You have cause and effect reversed on bananas. That ethylene offgas help certain other fruits to ripen.