Didn’t we decide at some point that gardening is an “art”? If I’m misremembering, please move this thread.
Our tiny Brooklyn backyard is primarily a flower garden, but I’m a fresh tomato freak and last June I purchased four tomato seedlings and planted them in the back forty – between two trees we’d just had severely trimmed, so I thought the spot was sunny enough.
They grew and flowered very well, enough that the Ukulele Lady complained they were shading the hyacinths. I trimmed them assiduously. But the fruit came very late, like mid-August.
Now, at the END OF SEPTEMBER, I still have flowers on the plants. Also a decent crop of fruit, but it is NOT RIPENING.
Is there any way to get the flowers to make tomatoes, and to get the 15-30 tomatoes to start turning red?
It’s possible you just planted them too late. There are short season varieties, but typically you expect about 100 days to maturity. I planted around May 15 and started harvesting about four weeks ago. And it takes about three to four weeks for a fully mature green tomato to ripen.
First of all, I believe I am the worst tomato farmer. But I will accept that possibly I am the second worst.
I live in Denver, and my tomatoes, if I even have any, are not red by the time the temp gets below 50F at night.
So I cut the vines (note: not the tomatoes, the vines), bring them inside and hang them upside down (which I would hang them some other way, but this is the only way I can figure out how to do it).
And then they might turn a little red, or they might not, but either way they are 1000 percent better than most supermarket tomatoes. Just pull off however many you need, when you need them, for as long as they last.
Remember, you heard this from the second-worst tomato farmer. But I learned this from my mother, who was a gardening wizard.
You’re not a bad tomato farmer. It’s a challenge growing vine-ripened tomatoes in northern climes!
All the advice you need is in the link provided by Johnny Bravo. Tomatoes are so picky about soil temperature. I’m sure you’ve noticed how, even if you plant them on exactly your last frost date, they’ll do nothing but mope and scowl until they like the soil temperature – whenever that is. Then you can’t hold them back.
Best tips I’ve got for planting tomatoes in the north with a hope of vine ripening is to: 1) Plant on your last frost date; 2) Plant with roots sideways in a shallow trench, to keep them close to the soil surface; and 3) Cover soil with black plastic to absorb as much heat as possible.
I advise cutting and letting them ripen inside as an avenue of last resort. They’ll “ripen,” but they will never be as flavorful as those that stay on the vine of a thriving plant. Unless you have temperatures of freezing or below in the offing, I’d leave those puppies on the plant for as long as you can.
For now, do cover the soil with black plastic to absorb the warmth, and hope for a few more weeks until temperatures drop to 32F. Forget about the flowers. Just pull those off. They’re sapping the strength of the plant and will never fruit.
Glad to hear I’m not the only tomato farmer that has consistently failed. We finally just gave up. We tried planting in a garden and also in containers. If we ever got actual tomatoes they would always end up with holes or cracks in them. We’d maybe get 2 somewhat normal looking tomatoes after planting 3 or 4 plants. After purchasing the plants, containers, and dirt it’s much cheaper to just buy them at a farmers’ market!
NYC’s climate isn’t all that different than Chicago’s, so far as I can tell, and growing tomatoes has never been a challenge around here. The weather in both cities from May to September is certainly fine for tomatoes. I just think you have to start early enough if you’re not planting something like Early Girls. Around here, the traditional start is usually Mother’s Day weekend. (Average last frost day is something like May 15. ETA: Actually, it looks like the latest both a 28F and 32F frost has occurred where I’m at since 1981 is 5/12.) You can usually get away with it earlier, but it’s best to play it safe. I plant about 16 plants, do very little to care for them (occasionally water them if there’s been a few days of a dry spell), and I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with at the end.
ETA: I should say, the one thing I did do at the new house this year is get my soil tested and amended for the nutrients needed, since I had no idea what I was dealing with here. We moved in last year in early-to-mid-June, so I didn’t bother with the garden, figuring it was a bit late for most of the plants I grow. (Plus, I honestly just didn’t want to deal with a garden when I had other things to get in order.) In my old house (the house I grew up in), we knew the soil pretty well, and just did normal fertilizing to it (just threw on the usual “tomato” fertilizer from the Home Depot) and everything grew like bonkers.
At the end of the growing season, my father would take all the green tomatoes, wrap them in newspaper, and leave them out at room temperature. Over the next few weeks they would ripen nicely.
In my area, we don’t get hot-hot temperatures in the summer, and when fall comes – as it has now – it comes rather abruptly. We go from a rare few 100 degree days to 70 degree days like you fell off a cliff.
Tomatoes want nice, reasonably hot days, say 80F more or less, for a consistent period to ripen fruit. When temps start falling below 70F, or rising above 100F, tomato plants really slow down their ripening process. Plus once it starts raining, that also slows ripening. One of the quickest ways to get tomatoes to ripen is to stop watering them.
I plant on my last frost date (May 15th) and hope for the best. I often harvest mid-October and still must bring in many green tomatoes to finish ripening in the kitchen. Other than that, my process isn’t much different than yours. Just the luck of the draw in micro-climates, I reckon.
Oh, wow. Yeah, by mid-October, there’s really nothing left on the vines here to harvest. Most of my tomatoes have already given up what they’re gonna give up. I expect maybe a dozen more tomatoes for the rest of the season.
I’ve got a butt-load on the vine, but we had a tricky cold snap a couple days back, and they took it kind of hard. Not sure if I can save these or not. Supposed to be warm again this coming week. Not sure if it will help or hurt, now.
Growing tomatoes is always a crapshoot for us here in Central Cali (santa barbara environs). If we find something that does well, we try to save the plant, fruit, whatever, and replant that for next year"s crop.
