Tips for Tomatoes in September
I am picking more and more Cherry Tomatoes as the days get longer. I still have a lot of other vines in the greenhouse with fruit to pick and if they won’t ripen I will try some of these tips. Let me know if you have other methods.
Encourage late ripening
- If you haven’t taken the greenhouse shading off, do so and clean all the glass.
- Bunny Guinness suggests you cover plants with horticultural fleece or perforated plastic.
- Stop pinching out as it is too late and excess water can be transpired through the new leaves to help avoid splitting.
- Reduce the plants work load by selecting the fruit you want to ripen and take the rest off.
- If you pick green tomatoes hang vines in a dark dry place to ripen.
- Wrap a tomato in newspaper and put in a drawer or cardboard box. Tomatoes ripen best in the dark and sunlight will make the skins get tough.
- Put a banana in with green tomatoes will speed up the ripening/decay process
- Pick green tomatoes as they start to change colour. Hard, dark green tomatoes get to a point where they won’t ripen and are only good for Chutney.