Can anyone help me with my tomatoes?

Question

My tomatoes are plentiful but for some reason they won't turn red on the vine. I had the same problem last year but I hardly had any. If I pick them & leave them in the sun they're delicious & juicy. I know they're in a good spot and I'm using loamy soil. So I can't figure out what the problem is. Before the last 2 yrs. they were wonderful and I'm tired of waiting for them to turn in the sun. Can anyone help me here?

I gave the area a rest a couple of yrs. ago & added compost, sand, soil & clay to make it loamy. Last yr. like previous years I let it naturally decompose. I've cut off sections & they grow back as fast as I can cut them. They stay almost 5 ft. tall & blooms keep popping up like crazy. But they are delicious when they do turn red and are even juicy when I make fried green tomatoes. So I know it's not the water.

I haven't been to the store yet but I'll try the banana idea.

It'sso weird because in the 5 or 6 yrs. before I allowed the area to rest they grew the same way but were covered my July with large, juicy red ones. Everyone told me last yr. was a bad yr. so I didn't think anything more about it. But everyone's this yr. are great.

May 10th is the planting date here. The weather was extremely hotter than usual (85-90) and very humid. But the humidity is down the last week & the nights more like autumn. I usually have tomatoes until the end of Oct.

Answer 1

Seems like your bumper crop of tomatoes may be the reason that the tomatoes are having a hard time ripening. You're on the right track.

Picking some of the large green ones will help the other tomatoes left on the vine ripen faster. Also, the hot temperature has slowed down ripening in many areas, probably yours, too? Here's what I've discovered about why tomatoes ripen slowly:

Plants that are actively growing & have a lot of vegetation while developing fruit may ripen slowly. Cutting back on the amount of water, & holding back on fertilizing helps with this.

Heavy fruit set can work against gardeners. Ripening numerous fruit takes a lot of energy & tends to delay the whole crop turning red.

Cooler September temperatures will also help your fruit to ripen because the red tomato pigments, lycopene and carotene, are not produced above 85 degrees F nor lycopene below 50 degrees F.

Good luck! Hope this helps.

Answer 2

You need to pinch out side shoots and when you have four trusses set for bush tomatoes or five/six trusses on standards, pinch out the growing tips. Reduce the size of large leaves/leaf clusters since they can shade the fruit and slow ripening.

The tomato variety may also be a cause. You don't say where you are and ideally should only grow outdoor tomatoes in the south.

You should be using a fertiliser that is high in potassium and phosphorus (e.g. Tomorite) which is essential for fruit and flowers. Beware of any fertiliser that is high in Nitrogen since this will give lots of green growth and not much in the way of fruit.

Some years, poor ripening just happens for no apparent reason, in which case a recipe for green-tomato chutneys is often the only remedy.

Answer 3

if you don,t have any luck and they don,t turn red get a large cardboard box and fill it with tomatoes then add two or three banana,s i didn,t know this till last year something in the banana makes fruit ripen out of about a hundred weight of tomatoes last year i was getting about ten red ones a day it also works on peppers i was turning green peppers into red and orange ones

Answer 4

I'm wondering where do you live? Are you in a high altitude area and what is your latitude perhaps your seasons are too short.
Go to the Internet and type in tomato planting I think you will find a lot of help there.
I live just north of the 49th parallel and plant in end of April and frost free till mid Sept to begining of Oct. So you see we have a fairly long growing season.

Answer 5

No No No, Right, Listen to me!!!!
Trust me, Sounds weird but a very old bloke told me this 1 and it worked.....
Last year I had the same problem!!!!
Find something red (like a top from an aerosol can), tie string from this and hang from one of the vines,
in a couple of days you will notice the toms starting to turn red.

Answer 6

This same question was asked last night. You may want to check out the numerous answers that people gave--all good, I might add. Just type in this question up above: Why won't my tomatoes ripen?

Answer 7

By now you should be trimming off new blooms on the plants, when the tomatoes start to get light green withhold water and they will ripen.

Answer 8

try not planting them in the same place.. that happend to me ..i change the place evry year always red juicy sweet tomatos now .. allways have to places for planting tomatoes just to give the soil arest then go back the next year good luck

Answer 9

Put them in a bowl with some Bananas,this will help them ripen

Answer 10

sounds like a drop of tomorite wouldn't go amiss there