creekweb: What I've read several times is that some stone fruit cultivars are damaged when refrigerated others aren't. Breeding cultivars that don't suffer damage is a stated objective of some breeding programs so it's a real issue. The injury when it occurs is at temperatures above 34F. 32-34F is the best temperature. I've not had injury holding my fruit for up to 2-3 weeks and I think I'm above 34F. The classic damage I've seen is fruit from Chile that is shipped up on a boat and suffers internal breakdown. I'd say you need to try it and see what happens.

I have 4 mature BT's and I am plagued with the same problem you describe. After 10 years I am about ready to give up on them and try another variety. If you come up with any answers, please let me know. I would NOT try to cover them with plastic inasmuch the heat underneath will get very, very hot and I'm afraid the trees will bake to death

Hi. I've done the root-pruning method and it worked very well for me. I'd never heard of it until I read Dick Raymond's book, Joy of Gardening. If I recall correctly, this is what he suggested, and what I did: 1) Wait until the tomato plants have set fruit and the fruit are a good healthy size, that "they've been big and green for a week but they're still not getting ripe!!" look. 2) Take an ordinary garden shovel or spade, and using the width of the shovel/spade blade -- usually about eight inches at the digging end -- measure off about eight inches from the stem at soil level. 3) Eight inches away from where the plant stem goes into the soil, push the shovel/spade straight down into the soil on three sides of the plant. Not four; three. (The goal is to prune the roots back around most of the plant, not to kill it.) 4) Water the tomato plant right away after you prune it. Might be a good idea to do the root-pruning and watering in the early evening, so the plant has time overnight to recover. Raymond said the damage to the plant would cause it to immediately start to ripen fruit, and I found it worked. Within a day or two, green tomatoes started turning red. My plants kept producing new flowers and fruit after the pruning, and they stayed productive into the first hard frost. The main caution I would advise is to wait until the green tomatoes are looking full-sized for the plant. I've never tried root-pruning with immature fruit; just plants which had full-size fruit that were in that long, slow, waiting-to-ripen stage. FWIW, I did this in a backyard garden in Toronto where the owner and another tenant also had gardens, and both prided themselves on the quality and size of their tomato plants. Felt kinda good to have the first ripe ones of the season. :) All the best, -Patrick

bsbullie Yeah one of my own mangoes. It needs a few day's more. I was about to put it in a paper bag when I started to think, why not just use a common plastic supermarket bag? That's where it is right now. But maybe no bag is needed. Mangoes don't put out ethylene gas the way bananas do. So you do put bananas in a bag to help them ripen I've had mangoes that fell off prematurely. I exposed them to the sun and made some of it sweet and edible. Salvaging something at least