Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: orient96 on October 22, 2018, 08:16
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Hello,
I'm pretty new to growing veg and tomatoes and was hoping to get a bit of advice please. I've been growing some ailsa Craig and Red alert tomatoes in my greenhouse and they are all at varying degrees or readiness to pick. I was just wondering if there was any kind of time limit on how long I could leave a tomato on the plant for once it has turned red. Its a bit strange because I have some that have turned totally red whilst others on the same bunch are still green.
many thanks
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This is quite normal - It's not often that all the tomatoes on one truss are ripe at the same time. The supermarket varieties are probably bred so they are more likely to do so, but even then you get part trusses in the boxes.
I think you'll find most people pick individual tomatoes as they ripen.
Ripeness depends on variety, but if you wait too long they will be tasteless. the texture can also be mealy and they fall to the ground eventually.
Try tasting a few at various stages to see at which stage you prefer to eat them.
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I found through experience this year that if you leave red ones on the plant too long then they tend to split. As a result I was removing them just as I could see that they were turning red, and then letting them fully ripen in a drawer in the kitchen where I could check them regularly.
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I had to pick all mine urgently this year because of blight but the green ones did eventually ripen off the vine, even though some took a few weeks. I just left them outside layed out on the patio. Generally I think its best to pick and use as they turn red so the plants effort is directed at those still to mature.