Tomato Ripening - Page 2

Thanks for that. As have a few plants with no sign of disease (fingers crossed smiley) but loads of green fruit, think I might try with half of them and see what happens. BTW - iPads great, mine lives on welsh dresser in kitchen but currently on desktop dinosaur.

Mrs Italophile wouldn't be without her iPad. She now has the matched set - iMac, iPad and iPod. I have no idea why she needs them all except never to feel far from the Internet. I stick with my iMac. It does me fine.

Bloke bought me iPad a couple of years ago after seeing my sister's. He's a technophobe generally, but every time he comes round he's doing something on it within minutes. He also bought me bluetooth speaker so I can have music/radio in the garden streamed from iPad.

I have managed to harvest 4 ripe toms up to now and theres still a large number of green toms and flowers on the plants. Also I have green plum toms in a larger plastic greenhouse, is there any likelyhood of these ripening?

Depends on the temperature, Barbara. Optimum temps for ripening are anything above low-20sC. The lower the temp below that, the longer they will take. If it's consistently warmer inside the house than outside - even in the greenhouse - you're better off taking them inside to ripen.

Thanks for these comments. I have so many green tomatoes and will bring them inside to ripen.

Yes thank you, I would hate to lose them now. Besides the plants themselves are not looking too healthy

Hi everyone, I'm new here today but have followed all your tips for quite a while and found them very useful . As far as tomato growing is concerned, I can thoroughly recommend the following website: http://www.tomatogrowing.co.uk/. Take a look, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

Can i just check on whether toms will ripen quicker indoors or outdoors at this time of year? more out of laziness, i've still got my plants out in pots in the garden. Have had a fair few, although the black russians only just starting to go (brown!) now.

Completely understand they're ripenened by the warmth... but... my youngest occasionally (and annoyingly) grabs a green one, which I then bring inside. Yet the ones inside seem to be ripening more slowly than the ones still on the plants?? Maybe just coincidence and our child has a habit of grabbing the least ripe ones?

Should say, am in SE England and on average temps are about 17C by day, 8C by night.

Could be grabbing the least ripe ones. You'll have seen the different shades of green on their way to ripening - starting dark, then ever so gradually lighter, before the colour starts to kick in.

17C as a day temp isn't bad, but the 8C overnight is slowing you down. Can you cover them at night? Pop them into a greenhouse? Alternatively, what are your temps like inside the house?

Basically, I should bite the bullet and bring them in I suspect... the house will be 20C+ most of the time...

Inside with 'em.

I've read all the comments here with interest as I have approx 7 plants grown outside and they all have masses of fruit but very few have ripened. Also I've  noticed some of the fruit have split. I totally understand the need for warmth to help them ripen so my question is...Do I pick the fruit and put them in a bowl to pripen of do they have to be placed on a rack of some sort? 

It's best to keep them separated just to avoid the possibility of bruising so I wouldn't use a bowl. You can put them on racks or a bench or windowsill or whatever. For larger varieties, it's a good idea to stand them upside down - on their shoulders - to minimise the amount of contact between skin and a hard surface.

Super! Thank you Italophile

hurray wrapped 6 green toms in newspaper put them into a clear plastic fruit container on the window sill, and low and behold took them out yesterday and they were all ripe. Just over a month but hey it worked 

Congrats! I've got half a dozen from my autumn crop ripening on the kitchen bench now.

I did the rest of mine in a glass trifle/fruit bowl and one ripe cherry tomato, cling filmed over and sat in a warm window. Worked a treat. And tasted lovely!

Had the same problem with Toms not ripening..Had a load of green toms , so ,i got hold of a Recipe for Green Tomato and Chilli Chutney, Made approx 20 jars of the stuff. Familys gone wild for it..Result.