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Growing Tomatoes

Tomatoes aren't turning red

14 years ago

I live in the North Central part of Mass. I have 4 tomatoes plants...2 are Romas and 2 are Jet Stars. My Roma plants are loaded with fruit, but they aren't turning green. The Jet stars are producing, but those aren't turning green either.. What's up???

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Comments (9)

homegardenpa
14 years ago
In short, it takes a long time to ripen a tomato.

I have had green caspian pinks, brandywines, rutgers, and bull's hearts for mutiple weeks now... they'll turn red / pink eventually, but tomatoes are not in nearly as much of a hurry as we are :)

Take a look at the recent thread on the tomato ripening timeline:

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Fruit Timeline
nabcity
14 years ago
They aren't turning green, huh?
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Big Beef is a known high producer and fairly early for a large Beefsteak. Varieties like Yellow Brandy are extremely late(90 DTM if I remember right). My Big Beefs were the first beefsteak to set, my Brandywine is just now starting to set about two weeks after my Big Beef. Give em some more time, they should come through for you. Although I have to admit, last year I got but only three tasty tomatoes off my Yellow Brandywine :) Don't waste your money on the blossom set spray
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the biggest tomato has stopped getting bigger, but is firm to the touch. The plant doesn't seem to be growing anymore. It is in a 12" pot and supposedly only required 7 to 9" pot. The plant has had some aphids on it, but I thought I was taking pretty good care of those, but I'm wondering with the weird weather conditions if it isn't affecting the plant because each day the plant looks like it is dying a little bit. The leaves are yellowing and then turning brown. I have been removing any leaves that looked that way, but now the whole plant pretty much looks that way. The leaves are droopy and I thought it was getting plenty of water with all of the rain, but the days that it wasn't raining I would give it a drink. All of my other tomato plants seem to have similar problems except my Vitador tomatoes which seem to be doing really well. Nice green color, and look very strong. They also have tomatoes on them but are very small still. I'm guessing the weather hasn't been warm enough consistently for them to grow very well. I don't know if it makes that much of a difference or not. This is only my second year of gardening. In the meantime, I guess I will try to continue to be patient and wait for red tomatoes. Thanks everyone.
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Thank you! I'm so sorry, I requested an e-mail when I received a response and it didn't show up. It's pretty easy to overload with information on the internet. I will start fertilizing regularly with a liquid. Is there one that you recommend? The container is 4 feet by 8 feet but the four plants are sharing about 2/3 of that space. I could easily give them more space but am afraid that their roots might be interwoven and I would damage them by trying to pull them apart. They are a Baby Boomer Hybrid meant for container growing. they may have reached their full size, then, and just aren't ripening. I'm very new to this although you probably already know that :) What can I do to encourage the fruit to ripen? Thank you very much!!
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pennyrile
14 years ago
Hasn't the weather been particularly cool and overcast up there lately? Not exactly conducive to ripening tomatoes.
tn_veggie_gardner
14 years ago
We've had a lot of this going around in TN this year. It seems the 4 weeks straight almost of rain & then hot hot 95+ temps have thrown a wrench into the mix of normal tomato ripening times. It appears to be (at least in TN) a real problem this year, with at least 4 gardens that I know of, just in close family.
homegardenpa
14 years ago
Yeah, I know the weather has been just terrible where I am. I just got my first tomatoes last week, and they were Stupice. I had foot tall plants when I set out during a warm spell in mid/late April. Then it was nothing but rain and cold, until the last month - then it wasn't cold, but was just as much rain :(

So yeah, the weather has been less than ideal for setting fruit and ripening. When I set out my plants April 20th, I expected I'd see some Stupice after about 60 days, which would have given me tomatoes with time to spare before the July 4th weekend. In reality, I didn't get to eat my first fully ripe Stupice until July 10th! That's about 80 days after setting plants out.

I have a bunch of late varieties this year, just holding out hope to see some ripe ones of those by August.
cleo88
14 years ago
I haven't a blush on anything, but the squirrels don't seem to want to wait. Grrr.
ceh2101
14 years ago
Thanks for the timeline on this message. I think, however, that there is a lot of difference between a Big Beef tomato and a Stupice or an Early Girl. It would be great if someone had a time line on different kinds of tomatoes.

I planted early with the Wall O'Water, but did not end up getting fruit for two week LATER than normal, thanks to the weather in Massachusetts. Fortunately these last few days have been nice. The next ten look like ideal tomato temps.
liz63
14 years ago
I was supposed to have my Applause in 65 days. It's been 56 days since I planted out just before Memorial Day and I am just getting blossoms. They'll come out the same time as the rest. I'm afraid all will ripen in September.
tn_veggie_gardner
14 years ago
Looks like the TN problem isn't just in TN. =) There has been some crazy anti-mater weather this Spring & early Summer all over the place.

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