Thank you all for your help last time I posted. The season is closing on my first time growing tomatoes and so I wanted to know when is the earliest I can pick the tomatoes that are left? I have read that you can as soon as they reach "breaker" stage, but what do you think based on my current tomatoes?
by JMCNation
6 Comments
I pick them as soon as they “blush”, AKA first sign of color should
Pretty much as soon as you see the first hint of their ripe color coming in. It’s shocking how early you can go.
I’ve had ones that were completely green ripen inside.
Just pick them all once there’s a risk of frost, if the plants start to rot, or if it rains a lot (as then they’ll probably split some even if they are not ripe).
In my experience, the longer you wait the better they taste. I’ve picked them green but they lacked flavor once they ripened
Tomatoes that ripen on a vine taste better than ones that don’t. Hang the branches in the house in a cool, dry spot. A little light is ok if you don’t have a closet. Tomatoes rely on ethylene gas—not sunlight—to ripen, so keeping green tomatoes in a confined, temperature-controlled area once harvested will speed up the process. To speed up the process, add a ripe banana near the tomatoes. It will emit ethylene gas and ripen even the green ones. Edit: sorry for the rambling paragraph 😄
Wait until they’re at about 30% blushed, then they will have all the sugars that they’re ever going to produce; then you can window-sill them.