Tomatos still green. Any hope?

butterfly72

Well, this is my first year of growing stuff and i've to be honest I haven't done very well! Out of 4 tomato (moneymaker) plants only have 3 produced fruit. The toms are various sizes but still green. They are outside and we don't have a greenhouse. We do have about 15 picked tomatos indoors to see if the indoor warmth will turn them. However, we have conflicting advise about how to ripen them.. mum says on a tray by the window, dad says in a dark box in the warmth?? A few of them are starting to look like they are going off... mottle dark red on the the skin.

Any ideas how I can ripen them!!:o It would be nice to eat just one of our home grown toms!

Many thanks.

nodwah

Are they in pots outdoors? in which case you could bring them inside to a sunny windowsill. Take most of the leaves off - encourages ripening. The mottled one might mean blight - cut it open and investigate?
To ripen green ones, in the dark is def best and put an overripe banana in there too!

olly300

Definitely do as nodwah says and pick them.

Earlier in the year a neighbour gave me a load of green tomatoes and I ripened them in a bowl with banana skins over them.

mary43

We;ve just had the last of our green tomatos fried...........very tasty but not as sweet as red ones (first time we've tried it). These were cherry tomatos we had in a hanging basket. Forgot about the banana skin method of ripening.Never tried it but think it was mentioned somewhere on this board.

bexybeck

Take off the whole 'stem' of tomatoes (like 'on the vine' in the shops) and pop them on the windowsill. They ripen better and are (allegedly) more nutritious than individual tomatoes!

Mottled dark red skin sounds like blight. Does the skin feel tougher than usual? The leaves curl too, but at this time of year they do anyway so that's no indication! All my outdoor toms got blight this year, and my gran's, neighbours, friends.... Don't put them in the compost bin or you'll spread it about. If the skin is softer than usual then they are just rotting.

Overall this has been a bad year for toms, last year wasn't too good either for that matter! Even my greenhouse toms have been poor but at least I can leave them a bit longer for ripening.

Next year, if they don't start turning red when they should, you can water on potash which encourages the ripening process.

gt568

Putting them in an airing cupboard has never failed me...

Primrose

Don't leave them outside any longer. My green ones have been ripening indoors on trays lined with newspaper and being at home all day, I've had the time to move them around to catch the sun. If your tomatoes are blighted, they'll rot before they ripen and infect all the others, so any with blotched skins should be thrown into the dustbin (and not onto your compost heap where they will infect your compost for next year).

Jake'sGran

I have grown lots of tomatoes this year, the cherry ones and a few standard varieties. I picked one of the last today. Feeding and watering are very important with tomatoes so it you grow them again next year have a look at the various web sites that will advise the best method. This year I watered at the same time every day. For ripening the few cherry ones that are green I do put them in a polythene bag with a banana which gives off a gas. It's not worth it for me now to try the airing cupboard method but I will next year. The taste of home grown tomatoes is great - different varieties, different taste of course. If you like them a bit sweet two good ones (cherry type) are Sweet Million and Sweet Olive (they look like olives when they are green).

frivolous_fay

I have cherry tomatoes in a hanging basket (the one plant I failed to kill earlier in the year) against the back wall of my house. Most of them are still a bit small but one is pretty ripe looking and another is starting to turn orange.

Do they need rescuing?

moonrakerz

Tomato chutney !

Primrose

frivolous - yes pick your tomatoes now. The nights are getting colder and the skins could be damaged. Lay them on trays on newspaper in a sunny windowsill to finish off ripening. I doubt whether we'll have enough warm sunny days now where you could move the trays outside for a few hours.