When to Pick Tomatoes?

[OldGuy43]

My tomatoes are doing fine considering my inexperience, but I do have one question. Does the sun bleach the red out of them? I have some that the side that gets the most sun is yellow and never turns red. They taste okay, but the side that faces the sun seems to get more yellow the longer I leave them on the vine.

Please advise,
Mike

 

[so lucky]

Yes, I think it does. Particularly if the yellow side is obviously the one that is most exposed to the sun. i have been picking mine a bit early to try to avoid them bursting from the hot sun and high water content, now that we are getting rain. They will ripen indoors in relative safety.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, you can google sunscald. That's what it is called. I've had that too much this year due to blister beetles stripping some foilage on my tomatoes. It's simply that the tomato gets sunburned. Usually the leaves are thick enough to protect the fruit from the sun, but if you prune or have some type of foilage problem or if it just happens to be out on the sun side, it can happen.

I've had it on peppers too this year. Aggravating.

 

[baymule]

Few people can comprehend the scalding Texas sun we get. Just pick 'em in the pink and let 'em ripen on the windowsill. Yum.

 

[titansolarco]

Hi all of you.
I am a new member for your site.
Youll start picking about 60-85 days after planting seedlings in the garden. Harvesting tomatoes continues until frost. Early varieties, obviously, ripen earlier than mid-season varieties. Tomatoes are begun ready within 2 or 3 days for picking. Once tomatoes start ripening, check plants each day and pick those that are ready. Overripe tomatoes will fall or be knocked off stems. They rot quickly. You can easily lose a big portion of your crop if you dont monitor your patch and keep harvesting tomatoes!