[q]Does anybody else in the northeast have a problem with tomatoes not ripening? I have hundreds of green tomatoes that have been green for close to 3 weeks now. I planted several varieties including First Lady, sungold, and Oregon Spring. I actually did harvest a First Lady yesterday and a few sun golds are starting to turn gold but most of the others are still green with no hint of turning red. Nights are in the upper 40s these days but it won’t be long until there’s a frost danger and I don’t want to lose this bountiful crop! (and I don’t want to make tons of stuff with green tomatoes either) Anybody have any ideas/suggestions?[/q]
[a]
I’ve also heard that cutting back on water helps the fruit to ripen. If you have too many tomatoes to bring inside, you might think about making a temporary greenhouse over the plants to keep them warm. Clear plastic and some PVC or heavy gauge galvanized wire should do it. Something to warm them up during the day and stay warm at night.[/a]
[a]
I live about an hour out of Vancouver, B.C. I know I have tried the paper bag method but can’t recall whether or not it worked! My ex mother-in-law used the box method and it worked well for her. She would have tomatoes from her garden very late in the year. She had a tiny garden but managed to grow a ton of stuff and with the help of cold frames was able to extend her growing season. The blight!! I know what you mean. This year I grew all of my tomatoes on the deck of the house. I tried to have them close enough to the house so that the rain would keep off of them. I went so far as to use potting soil for most of them. If this doesn’t work I am getting a greenhouse for sure. Am sick of losing a great crop to the blight. The tomatoes I am getting are small as I think I should have been feeding them more than I did. Well I really only fed them once and that’s not good! I still have lots of green tomatoes too. I am thinking that I might actually bring some of the plants into the house if it looks like it is going to freeze before they ripen![/a]
[a]
If it comes down to it you can always pick them while green and let them ripen inside. We put ours on the kitchen counter for a few days and they get red.[/a]
[a]
Cut off half of every leaf on the vine and tomatoes will start ripening within a week. I usually choose one plant in early August for earlier tomatoes. If it is an indeterminate vine, it will go on to produce more fruit during the season. . I went out and cut ½ off each leaf on the remaining tomatoes yesterday. Because this is the end of the growing season, I also ct all top growth above the uppermost stem of tomatoes. I should have ripe tomtoes next week. [/a]
[a]
To hasten ripening, try this method. It has worked for me in the past. It is easier to do than the other methods I have read on the list. All these methods work by stimulating the plant to hurry and ripen the fruit because of some sort of shock or stress to the plant. This gets the plant out of its active foliage/growing phase and stimulating it to enter its ripening phase. My method is called root pruning, and it is done quickly and easily. Determine what the drip-line of the tomato plant would be. Thrust a shovel blade all the way into the soil in 4 places equidistantly around the drip-line. This will sever a portion of the roots, which limits some of the water and nutrient uptake from the roots, but does not kill the plant. This will stress the plant just enough to stimulate ripening.[/a]
[a]
I too use root prunning to hasten ripening, but I find that I need to cut into only 1 side to affect the plant the same as all 4 sides, also there are nutrients that can be in short supply that help in ripening, for next season try using some liquid kelp to help the plants balance those. If you can get a Tom to turn 2 colors (blushing) it will ripen indoors, try putting it next to an apple or another fruit that has a lot of Enzymes to ripen themselves.[/a]
[a]
Just a suggestion, but if you take the tomatoes inside to ripen, I found it best to cut a fair amount of vine off with the truss of tomatoes. Although that does mean you may have to bring in some that are much smaller than you might want, they will probably ripen, but more to the point, the larger ones will ripen and sweeten better, I think this is why they have taken to leaving tomatoes „on the vine” in supermarkets, over here in Europe at least.[/a]
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