Ripen off the vine?

[christian1971]

Do tomatoes that are still green but fully grown, ripen off the vine?

[NarnianGarden]

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=42329

[Father'sDaughter]

If they are in fact fully grown, there's a very good chance they will, but it will take a while.

[gorbelly]

How many fruits do you have that need to ripen?

[Urbanheirlooms]

I had a situation where I had a row of tomatoes that I had planted was across a property line (unknown to me obviously) and after my wife said something to the neighbors about their dogs constantly coming over and harassing our dog, the owner had a survey and made me remove all of the plants I had in the row (60' row). I had about 170# of tomatoes in that row which I picked green and put in boxes. I would say that eventually, 75% of them ripened up on their own-even the ones that were not mature.

[gorbelly]

I've also had tomatoes ripen up that were picked before frost and hadn't reached mature green. The taste was really not very good on those, but they could be used for sauce, roasted, etc.

[Gardeneer]

Some times some tomatoes ripen after picking even when they have not grown quite to full mature size.
This is what I picked at the end of October last year. Most of them ripened on the counter.

[Ed of Somis]

I never pick before fully ripe...but many folks here pick when the fruit is coloring up. Many discussions on this site about that. I did pick my mother-in-law some green tomatoes yesterday so she could fry them. I didn't hear she got a bellyache.

[ContainerTed]

If left to do their thing, all of those fruit of reasonable size will eventually ripen. My brother and I will sometimes take up a tomato plant's main vine when frost is threatening and simply leave the tomatoes attached. We hang the vine in the basement or garage. I also harvest all the remaining tomatoes in the garden right before the frost hits. In both cases, we usually only lose a few of the smallest tomatoes. All the others color up and look normal. They don't taste quite as good as the summer stock, but they still beat the cardboard grocery store offerings.

The cooler you keep them, the slower they ripen.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by christian1971

Do tomatoes that are still green but fully grown, ripen off the vine?

The short answer is "yes" but . . .

In post #2 of this thread NarnianGarden linked to a currently running thread on this topic that has lots of opinion, experiences, and research data.

In post #24 of that thread is a link to another long thread with good material on the same topic.

In post #13 of that thread is a sort of index of many of the informative threads there have been on various aspects of the topic, with links and brief descriptions.

And many of those threads contain additional valuable links.

Lots and lots of interesting material that will help anyone trying to decide on best ripening strategy about considerations that may apply to their own situation.

[slugworth]

I ripped up plants and the green tomatoes on them turned red.If you have to rip up plants try to leave the tomatoes on the plants.
Tomatoes ripen from the inside out,so they may turn red but the flavor may suffer.

[WilburMartin]

on my experiment earlier this year, two creole plants from the same vine

one ripened red on the vine; one I picked after growing to ripe stage, but when the temp was too hop to activate the lycopene

they both tasted the same - homegrown

[creeker]

Last year November I picked about 20 pounds of small green tomatoes and put the, in flats in front of glass doors in an unheated part of our house, temp probably around 60 to 70 degrees F. All but a half dozen or so ripened by the end of the year. My wife sliced and dried them as they ripened. Delish!!

[zipcode]

Yeah, they will ripen unless very immature (like still kinda matte looking, which is really young). The taste actually can be good on some varieties, even like this, other less so.

[gorbelly]

I get the impression that christian is asking a simple question about whether they will ripen, not about quality of fruit that will ripen or advisability of pickfing fruit when green. Perhaps there was an accident or a need to pull a plant early or something.