Poor Gil! I was looking at mine this afternoon, and some are splitting, even the cherry tomatoes. But most are doing okay, so fingers crossed that the weather holds!

That would be so disappointing...my tomatoes have grown so large, but only the Big Beef have ripened so far. I've been watering consistently all summer, never letting them dry out at all. Do you think variety (thin skin) has something to do with them bursting like that?

It has everything to do with it, Donna. It was actually one variety that burst, which is my Grandpa's heirloom that dates back to the 1920s, and it's really bad for splitting. I grow it out of sentimentality and also because it's great for canning if they don't all split. It has a really intense tomato flavour.

Widespread frost/freeze coming to SK and MB between September 11th and 14th. Just a heads-up, y'all.

I agree with slimy...almost later than normal killing frost....ugggggg

Our average first frost is Sept. 24. I'll be picking all the tomatoes as soon as the forecast is +3!

It shows +5 here for lows next week. I'd really like to get some ripening done before the frost hits so i'll probably cover them. But that gets old pretty quick!

Gillian, sorry to hear your tomatoes have split. what type of tomato are they? I've been on a quest for years to find tomatoes that are capable of giving me sores in my mouth. I love the old acidic real tomatoes :)

I've surprisingly had quite a few ripe tomatoes so far. We also have had more stinking rain, and hope the rest of mine don't end up ruined also.

Lynn

NAF I am in the same boat. I have nothing but cherry tomatoes ripen to date. Looks like they need a few more weeks....

SCG

Lynn, I don't know the name or if they ever had one. I call them Brydon which was my Grandpa's family. I'd be glad to send you seeds if you want to try them out. They do ripen early and have a really nice flavour. Maybe some day a tomato expert will be able to tell me if they have a name!

We are having more stinkin rain again right now. :P

Hang on to that rain for awhile, okay, Gil? We have company out at the lake and i want them to stay there! LOL

Sigh... I feel your pain! My tomatoes are far from being ripe and the temperature is going to plummet next week. I don't think that I will be enjoying them this year.....

Ostrich, just pick them and put them in a basement or garage, in a single layer on cardboard. They'll ripen up in no time! As long as they were a reasonable size at picking, anyway.

I always have to pick mine green, and they do ripen, but this year I've been picking red ones daily. However, since looking at the forecast I think I will go out and pick the remainder. Frost seems likely in the next few days and it's quite cold out during the day.

Yep, all of AB and SK and most of MB is going to get an early frost this year. The last few Septembers were quite mild - I knew we would pay for that sooner or later ;).

I sure hope the frost avoids here. Everything in my garden is putting on an impressive growing spurt with the cooler weather. Lots of rose blooms I am anxiously awaiting, dahlia's of which some just> started blooming.....ugggg.

SCG

Checked mine out today and lots are blushing now. But the weather forecast is worse than it was, so i might be picking mine too. What a pain. There's no room in the basement to leave them in a single layer so i usually end up layering them in a box and it isn't that great. Will have to figure out something else, i guess. A single layer would be so much better.

Ouch, the MIL had a light frost at her place and her tomato (yes single lol) plant didn't look happy. We are supposed to get another few weeks before this happens.

BTW thanks for the tip on getting them to ripen. I was told, probably an old wives tale, that they needed to start to turn color or they wouldn't. Can't believe how many tomatoes I have tossed in the years past........

SCG

Depending on the size, a lot of tomatoes will ripen from solid green but won't have the same taste or texture as one that has at least had some colour break.

0C forecast sometime in the middle of next week so I'll probably have to harvest most of them before that...that is about 80% of my tomato crop and most are large in size but still green.

There has been many years when we've had one killing frost and then gorgeous warm weather for another three weeks...such a waste. I might cover a few things but certainly can't do that for the majority of the veggies.

Gorgeous isn't predicted for us after this coming cold spell, but highs in the low teens and lows around 7-10ð. Not sure if that would be warm enough to ripen tomatoes.

Thanks for the info Donna. I agree looks like next week they forecast 2C as a low. Fortunately I don't have many tomato plants and can either bring them in or cover the rest. Temps are supposed to rise again to lows of 10 after that.

SCG

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/VegFruit/ripening.htm

I'm far better at gardening than using the computer, so the above was copied and pasted for your use.

It's an article about ideal temperatures and conditions for ripening tomatoes. I think I'll take their advice :)

I'm just not willing to cover my tomatoes this early in the year. I think I'll dig up most of the garden and use it for trench composting for the rest of the season :)

Thanks NAF, that was useful and pretty much reinforced what I've always done.

Here is my haul of green tomatoes, after explosion and slug casualties were removed. I've eaten most of the ones that ripened on the plant. One plant of each variety produced these.

Pruden's Purple: (these are fairly smooth and respond well to pruning - they don't seem to make a whole ton of tiny tomatoes after they've been pruned a couple of times) (they are not purple)

Brydon, those that didn't explode - slugs love them too!

Orange Banana and German Striped. OB is hugely prolific and GS makes some GIGANTIC fruits. They're a few tomatoes deep here.

Here's the clickable link. Now i need to read it!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ripening tomatoes

My gosh that is a lovely haul....i can cover mine so am waiting till the last minute... Plus my girls eat anything red so my best chance to have one is to ripen inside......HIDDEN.....

SCG

Nice haul :) How many plants is that from?

I dug up 4 of my plants and left 4 out there for now. They may come out tomorrow unless the weather forecast changes :(

So what do real people do with the tomatoes that end up staying green?

A joke around here is "fried green tomatoes" but do people really do that?

It's one plant of each variety, so four plants total. For me, only the very smallest don't ripen, and I pretty much know what to not bother picking. I compost anything that doesn't make it. Fried green tomatoes are for real, but you should start with a good-sized unripe tomato, not 3 week old ripening failures because those will be mealy and dry. There are recipes out there for breading and cooking FGTs. I've tried them and they're good.

How to avoid multiple layers of tomatoes in a single box:

Save any good-sized cardboard box with an intact bottom and a few inches on the sides. (You can trim a taller box into two short "trays".)

Pizza boxes are good for cherry, grape and other smaller varieties.

When cold weather hits and you bring in the tomatoes, you can stack these "trays" several trays high. Turn the trays at a 30 or 45* angle to each other: they'll take up a bit more room, but you'll have more air circulation and fewer cases of a tray collapsing into the tray below.

Good idea!

For the record, I didn't leave them like that. They're spread out in the garage now.

holy smokes ! That's from 4 plants? Obviously I'm doing something wrong. Do you fertilize the sh#t out of them or what is your secret? Does everyone out there get that many tomatoes from 4 plants?

My vegetable garden is where it was lawn for over 40 years so I'm trying to amend the soil more and more each year. I hope that will improve my yields.

My secret is that I fertilize the sh#t out of them. LOL

I use raised beds and this year I planted a 4 x 8' bed with only four tomato plants. I dig all my compost into my three veggie beds, so they're growing in pretty much straight compost. I do prune, but not heavily or diligently. I sometimes add extra tomato cages to keep the plants supported as they spread. I've had "tomato gurus" tell me I should prune more, but I can't hear them over the sound of all my tomatoes. ;)

Northspruce, I hear you on the not pruning much. I haven't pruned at all the last 2 years and I get LOADS of tomatoes. All my family and friends I've had out exclaim on how many there are. So I always give pruning snobs "the look" when they insist that lack of pruning is the worst thing ever. That said, my plants get enormous, and take up soooo much room, and sprawl all over the paths between my raised beds, that next year I may actually do some pruning. :P

Well it doesn't look like we got a frost last night, but it got awfully close. Still another few days of needing to cover though...sigh.

I don't know why, but instead of ripening this year, my celebrity tomatoes kept getting bigger and bigger! Kind of annoying. Last year they ripened fairly early, the tomatoes were smaller, and no cracks or scars. I only have 2 or 3 that are actually turning color at this point, so I'll probably be having to pick a lot of green to tomatoes at some point. I must have watered inconsistently at some point, all the tomatoes(not the cherries) have some scarring from growing too fast.

weeper,

That was exactly the same for me...my tomatoes kept getting bigger but only a few ripened so far. I have a Persimmon tomato that is well over a pound! I looked back at a picture same time last year and I was swimming in ripe tomatoes, yet this summer seemed to have the ideal growing conditions, with lots of sun and not a lot of rain in July/Aug. I imagine that's what kept the fungal diseases at bay.

I don't prune either...I keep the plants tidy using the Florida Weave method and it works well. Harvested all my tomatoes yesterday and I could not believe how many there were and the tomatoes were perfect with no blemishes or cracking.

These Big Beef filled a 20 L pail and more, from five plants and we've been eating some for the past couple weeks.

The heirloom/OP varieties weren't quite so prolific but then I only planted one or two of each of those varieties. I think that's Cherokee Purple on the left of the Big Beef.

Well on the plus side, literally, after you get another 2-3" of snow it will be +20 by the weekend.

SCG

Great looking maters, Donna! Mine were the same, good production but not much ripening.