Tomatoes still green?

mysticlakemama 9/11/2012, 6:11 am

Hello All,

My first post here -- and my first season gardening. Does anyone know why so many of my tomatoes are still green? They are regularly watered and have good sunlight for the better part of the day. We've had a couple here and there, but for the amount of plants that I've got going, I've eaten very few tomatoes this summer.

Now that the temps are dipping at night I don't see this problem resolving itself soon and thought they might need my help.

What do I do? Do I pinch off new growth? Do a ripening dance? Help!

Thanks in advance!
Jessica

Zone 6B, just outside of Boston

Goosegirl 9/11/2012, 7:58 am

One thing that may help with ripening is to hold off on the watering a bit now that they are grown. Be prepared for a sudden amount of ripe tomatoes!

GG

CapeCoddess 9/11/2012, 11:27 am

Hi Jessica - $glad you\'re here$

This is my first year, too. I hear ya about how long it takes our tomatoes to ripen. I planted 2 different types of cherry tomatoes for that reason. I was able to eat those before the bigger ones ever started ripening.

One thing I found out is that my maters shut down during the heat wave when the temps in the sun got about 85 & above. Once I put shade over them, using burlap, they seemed to perk up and carry on.

Next year I will start tomatoes probably in Feb and get some large plants for planting outdoors instead of starting with little dinky seedlings.

CC

**Turan** 9/11/2012, 11:34 am

Shock them so they think they better get their fruit ripe if they are to propagate at all. I do this by pruning back all new growth, all flowers. Then I cut some roots, maybe 1/3rd. GWN says that Elliot Coleman puts ripe bananas in the greenhouse to get the ripening started. Once it starts it tends to go into an avalanche of ripe tomatoes.

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