Tomato Ripening Time

[JenLovie]

After a crazy hot summer my tomato plants are finally producing. I have romas and a regular heirloom tomato (I don't remember the variety). Anyway, they're doing great, but I'm wondering how long it's going to take for them to be ripe. I know I can't rush them, but I don't want to lose my maters to a frost.

[Macky]

Depends on the variety. :)

If you have frost in the forecast, just go out and cover the plants with blankets or tarps. That'll do down to -2C or -3C, lower if you use multiple layers. The leaves that touch the blanket/tarp might get damage, but the plant and the tomatoes will be fine and continute to ripen. :tu

There's tonnes of discussion about timing tomato harvest over on GardenWeb. Surprisingly, the consensus seems to be (and these are tomato snobs) that there's not advantage to leaving the toms on the plants past the breaker stage.

We cover for a few frosts and then bring all the tomatoes in to ripen in boxes when we start getting hard frosts (defined as -3C and below). Here's a pic of our ginormous tarp (from this fall). :giggle

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y168/Macky77/DSC_3459.jpg

[JenLovie]

Thank you! After keeping my plants alive through the heat I won't want to lose 40+ tomatoes (and the potential sauce).