[hubballi]

I have  mixed success in my greenhouse. Some toms are quite big and well formed, others like Gardener's delight are very small and quite poor (they are supposed to be one of the best varieties to grow) I have them in my lean-to greenhouse with many toms that have stayed the same for a few weeks without ripening. I have shade netting on to keep the temp down during hot weather.

Should I take it off to help ripen or will this harm them ? 

Thanks.

[DD.]

It'll fry them.

Easier solution is to throw in some banana skins. (I kid you not).

[fatcat1955]

As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.

[Yorkie]

As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.

That does rather depend on where the bottom truss is ... with my cordon tomatoes, the first truss is at 3' high so I'd be losing rather a lot of leaves.

I'm not convinced by the need to remove leaves anyway as I think it can weaken the plant's ability to make food / energy.

[JayG]

Like Yorkie, the lowest trusses on mine are about 3' off the ground (the plants grew pale and leggy and I was a bit slow off the mark realisig that it was due to nutrient-deficient compost rather than lack of warmth and light.)

As a result one of my Sweet Million has a main stem about 9' long zig-zagging across and up the greenhouse  but even so has only about 5 trusses. Because the lower leaves were mottled and pale I've removed most of them anyway, but normally I'd only remove them if they were dying off or severely congested.

Good idea not to fry tomatoes before you pick them, but I think it's also about making a judgement about the number of fruits you allow to develop and whether there's sufficient time and energy in the plant for them all to grow to full size and ripen.

Hopefully still plenty of time yet, but it doesn't pay to be too greedy unless you like green tomato chutney! 

[hubballi]

My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.

The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who insisted on cutting off all the leaves at the end of the season to get great toms. Bit too scared to do that myself  

[Springlands]

Tigerella have a lovely flavour - so will be well worth the wait. Many of us have tomatoes that are still green - it has been that sort of year - maybe the sunshine of the last few days will help - we just have to be patient.

As for removing leaves from tomatoes - everyone has their own personal views. I follow my grandfathers and fathers ideas on this. Once the bottom trusses are almost fully formed I remove the leaves up to the truss but not beyond. Once those tomatoes have ripened if the next lot of leaves are shading the tomatoes on the next trusses I would remove those leaves but only the leaves that are doing the shading. My GF and dad always had good tomatoes and I usually have a reasonable crop following this. Another thing that they both told me was not to crowd the GH too much - the plants get much better light and air and there is less risk of disease.

[nodiggardener]

It'll fry them.

Easier solution is to throw in some banana skins. (I kid you not).

The reason that ripening fruit (i.e. banana skins) works is that they produce the gas ethylene that acts as a fruit ripening hormone. If you don't pick your very first ripe tomatoes, they themselves, will act as a ripening agent for all the others.

[DD.]

I often wondered how it worked. 

[nodiggardener]

My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.

The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who

Tigerella h

As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.

As DD say's plus strip off the leaves below the bottom truss.

ave a lovely flavour - so will be well worth the wait. Many of us have tomatoes that are still green - it has been that sort of year - maybe the sunshine of the last few days will help - we just have to be patient.

As for removing leaves from tomatoes - everyone has their own personal views. I follow my grandfathers and fathers ideas on this. Once the bottom trusses are almost fully formed I remove the leaves up to the truss but not beyond. Once those tomatoes have ripened if the next lot of leaves are shading the tomatoes on the next trusses I would remove those leaves but only the leaves that are doing the shading.

My Tigerella have good size toms but Brandywaide and G-Delight are quite puny. Quite exited about Tigerella as not tried them. I nipped the tops off the leggy plants to help them produce better fruit but it hasn't really done much.

The trouble is my greenhouse is very congested and I think this is half the problem with leaves in the way. The plants are green and healthy (I fed them with small amount of poultry manure mixed in Comfry) as they were pale a few weeks ago. I have no option but to cut a few selected leaves off to make space and light.I knew a guy who insisted on cutting off all the leaves at the end of the season to get great toms. Bit too scared to do that myself 

My GF and dad always had good tomatoes and I usually have a reasonable crop following this. Another thing that they both told me was not to crowd the GH too much - the plants get much better light and air and there is less risk of disease.
Great to read that Tigerella is still being grown, I wonder if the other striped tomato Tiger Tom is still available. It is interesting to remember about thirty years ago tomato breeders bred these two varieties for their taste. The stripes were bred in as a marker to show they were different to the usual tasteless red balls sold in the shops. Unfortunately this brilliant idea never caught on! But kids love their stripes and their taste.
I wonder also if they breed true from your own saved seeds. Old varieties like Ailsa Craig do, modern F1 hybrids do not.

[compostqueen]

All tomatoes are still green at the moment so it's not just yours Hub.  Patience is a virtue.  Relax.  They'll ripen.  Go drape them in nana skins, it will keep your hands busy 

[Springlands]

It is so hard to be patient - cannot wait to taste a lovely home grown tom. Yummm.

This is probably a silly question but I am going to ask it anyway. The tomatoes in my GH are all different sizes (as I am sure most peeps toms are). If I was to drape some nana skins around would it make the small tomatoes ripen as well as the full size ones because I would prefer the small ones to grow a bit more.

[sunshineband]

They won't start to ripen until they reach full size, so don't worry, Springlands 

[Springlands]

They won't start to ripen until they reach full size, so don't worry, Springlands 

Thanks Sunny - think I will snack on a nana and then experiment - have never tried this before - then we have never had such a bad year in a long time. 

[sunshineband]

I accidentally cut off one of my huge  Black Sea Man fruits when I was gung ho removing spent leaves.

It has been in the fruit bowl with the bananas, basking in emitted ethylene, and is now, a week later, changing colour nicely