I have hundreds of green tomatoes that are taking forever to ripen. Most of the large tomatoes that have ripened are ruined by a caterpillar that chews its way into the tomato and leaves it full of brown feces as it eats the inside of the tomato. In the process it makes the tomato ripen early. If the damage is not too great I have been cutting the damaged part out and eating the undamaged part as these are my only ripe tomatoes. I did some research and think the name of this caterpillar is the Tomato Fruitworm. Supposedly natural predators may keep it in check, but I guess I don't have any or enough in my garden. The article says BT will also work, but takes three days to kill them, in which time they could have already damaged the tomato. Anyone know about how many dollars worth of BT it would take to treat 36 tomato plants? Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Fruitworm

It might just be too warm!! Go figure!! My tomatoes were planted in May and because my greenhouse was too warm throughout the summer they are just starting to ripen now. Check this link on Tomato Ripening: http://cvp.cce.cornell.edu/submission.php?id=91 If you can't open the link, the most important info is this "The optimum temperature for ripening tomatoes is 70 to 75F. When temperatures exceed 85 to 90 F, the ripening process slows significantly or even stops."

So do you remove the first fruits to set right after they appear? How many do you remove? **** I can't speak for anyone else but heck no, I don't remove the first fruits to set. I've waited how many months of cold, snowy bitter weather to taste those first fruits so no way am I going to delete/discard/demolish or otherwise get rid of them. And with few exceptions I gave up growing earlies many years ago. I'm not one to look for those first fruits at all, especially on earlies, I wait until some of my early mid-season ones start ripening fruits. And unlike some above who find that first fruits don't always taste the best, that's not been my experience with most varieties and I really do think it might be related to where someone, in a geographic sense, is growing their tomatoes as well as weather conditions, and the way folks grow their tomatoes. And no, lets not take this long thread into ways of growing tomatoes for there are at least 20 K threads here about that already. LOL Carolyn

I am pretty new at this, so take advice with that in mind. I hand pollinated one fruit August 1st, and it's almost ready, 58 days, corky stem just starting ( a bit like red kuri). I did another Sept 2nd, today 27 days, smaller, lush stem, going to need luck and covering it when frost is predicted. If you wish to save seed, you can pick them when almost ready and let the fruit send some nutrients to the maturing seeds for 3 or 4 weeks before eating the squashes. Many that are still a bit green will taste OK if allowed to ripen in the house for a few weeks......but will be wetter and less sweet. Leave them on the plant if only light frost is expected, or cover the plants with blankets, 6 mil poly, floating row cover, whatever you have. The pale orange ones might ripen in the house if you pick them when a heavy frost threatens.