Tomatoes arent ripening?

[sparkles2307]

Is it normal to have tomatoes that have stopped growing larger but arent ripening at all? My bushes are loaded and nothing has even lightly tinted for 2 weeks now. I cut the tops off the plants last weekend to attempt to tell them to stop getting taller and just ripen the fruit but nothing happened...

 

[lesa]

What kind of weather are you having? Mine didn't really start ripening, until we got some real hot temps. Why not try bringing a few in. If you put a layer of newspaper down and cover the tomatoes with newspaper, you should see red soon. Good luck!

 

[sparkles2307]

thanks. Its been cool, we had a 3 day hot spell but its been in the 50s at night and 70s in the day.

 

[obsessed]

Heat has a lot to do with it. When I lived in Montana it never really got hot enough long enough to get a vine ripened tomaote. That and they just take for freakin ever. Even here in the south I was wondering if theu were ever going to be ready.

 

[digitS']

My son lives in the Twin Cities and just began harvesting some of the larger tomatoes. His growing season is a bit ahead of mine and ahead of yours too, I'm sure.

Plants need warmth to ripen as Lesa and Obsessed suggest. A rule of thumb: could be that most tomato varieties need about 1,700 Growing Degree Days to begin producing ripe fruit.

(I had to look up Gary . . . tiny, tiny town !)

Anyway, the Weather Service has Grand Forks, ND approaching 1,500 GDD. Minneapolis has 2,000 GDD. I got Grand Forks beat at about 1,700 and just sliced my first beefsteak yesterday!

. . . patience young grasshopper.

Steve

 

[Liberty7]

I'm in a burb of the Twin Cities, and I'm having the same trouble with my tomato plants.

It was recommended to me to do two things: 1) hang 'ripe' banana peels ON the tomato cages or 2) put green tomatoes in a brown-paper bag along with a few 'ripe' banana peels and close up bag.

The ripe banana peels give off ethilene gas which helps with the ripening process.

I've already hung banana peels on my tomato cages, and now I'm picking RED tomatoes every day! However, I still have a lot of green tomatoes; so, I'm going to use the bag method.

 

[lupinfarm]

I'm having the same trouble in Ontario, I pulled all the tomatoes that were larger off my plant in the front today and I'm going to ripen them off the vine. I have a huge egg basket filled with large tomatoes. This year hasn't been all that great for vegetables around here.

 

[unclejoe]

Anyway, the Weather Service has Grand Forks, ND approaching 1,500 GDD. Minneapolis has 2,000 GDD.

Steve

That's a pretty cool site. Thanks for the link. We've had 2421 GDD here so far. My tomatoes just started ripening about 10 days ago. Last year I was a canning fool by now. By this weekend, I should have enough to make my first batch.

 

[Broke Down Ranch]

That IS a cool site. We've had 4,034 GDD up until August 15th.....

I have pruned back a lot on my tomatoes in hope of not having to plant a fall crop of tomatoes

 

[obsessed]

That is what I plan to do net year. My tomatoes definately stopped producing toward the end of May early June. So I ripped the out thinking I would just have a fall crop. But transplanting in the heat ain't easy. Please let me know how it goes?