Allotments 4 All

these are my outdoor toms today

and this is my other bed

I have Helsing Junction Blue tomatoes who have grown like mad, set tons of fruit and ........... they haven't done a thing for 4 weeks.  The neat bunches of black cherry tomatoes look fabulous against the green foliage, but I am waiting for the red hue under all that black skin to appear that signals they are ripe.  They are also still very hard.  There is a bit of slow ripening going around for sure.    

Really helpful and informative reply, Galina. In the end I ditched the non-ripening although laden plants, as they weren't looking happy, and I don't want green tomato chutney.  i only make my favourite Irish Marrow chutney with  a glut of courgettes, which I've certainly had this year.

Quote from: ACE on August 26, 2015, 11:01:28
I was reading about the transportation of tomatoes on the vine. Evidently there are 3 stages of ripening. They pick the vine ones green, but if picked too early they will not ripen, even with the gas they use. They have to be in the second stage before colour starts showing.

Ace, yes I agree.  When fruit are full size and start looking glossy, they will easily colour up indoors.  Whilst they are still matte, they are not mature enough to be ripened off the vine.  Not worth keeping.  But all shiny fruit from an emergency harvest (from a very recently blighted plant for example) will ripen (unless they were also already touched by blight, in which case they will go brown within a day).  If I act fast with  blighted plants, I can mostly recover the harvest.  Sun ripened on the vine always tastes best, but window sill ripened home grown is still tastier than bought.