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

I generally grow 100 to 150 tomato plants in my garden every year and have easily grown 500 to 600 varieties over the years. I also breed tomatoes as a hobby, so I am always interested in how long it takes from Fruit Set to Ripeness. My general rule of thumb is about 25 to 30 days for small and cherry tomatoes and 45 to 60 days for large tomatoes, BUT, it varies based on a lot of factors such as variety, temperature, sun exposure, rain/cloudiness, size of the plant and how many tomatoes the plant is producing. Some of the 'early' varieties, such as Early Wonder or 4th of July are pretty surprising sometimes. They can produce fruit quite fast, though it isn't large. There are also those varieties such as Oregon Spring and Polar Set that can set fruit even at low temperatures (without being fertilized) and sometimes will produce earlier because they set fruit earlier (though I have never been impressed with the flavor of varieties like that). If you figure that you plant a small cherry tomato and a large late tomato, such as Italian Sweet or Stump of the World, and the plants grow at about the same rate, and set blossoms at about the same time, then why are the Cherry tomatoes often ripening by late June or early July and the Late Season tomatoes don't produce until mid August? (I'm talking about growth and fruit set under GOOD conditions here in Salt Lake City, Zone 6.) They have ALL been growing and setting fruit at about the same rate, so the difference in dates to ripeness, in that case, are due to genetics and size.

Dave, I'll have to dissagree on the ripening time after setting fruit issue. Cherry tomatoes will take less time from flowering to ripe fruit and because there potentially are hundreds of fruits originating from a cluster there is also the liklihood that a few more will ripen before the first of a larger fruit cluster of 5 or 6 fruits. I've routinely planted many varieties in a high tunnel on the same day and this year 9 of the 12 cherry varieties were producing fruits 2 weeks before the first larger fruited variety was picked. Occasionally one or 2 larger fruited types might sneak an early one in but beware that it is not a development fluke like BER. As far as BW(Brandywine)- give up on early fruits. Try Prudens Purple for consistantly earlier fruits that look and taste like BW. Prudens Purple will also out yield BW under most conditions.

t-bird, compost is slow acting, so I am sure it was the cooler spell of weather followed by the warmer temperatures. That kind of puts the plants on notice that fall is coming and they start ripening fruit so that they will have mature seeds to propagate the next generation of tomatoes. There is more information on the ripening of tomatoes at this link: Tomatoes Not Ripening? Based on historical data, your area has a 50% chance of having a freeze (32° or lower) between October 13th and 24th, depending on whether your area's weather is closer to what they have at O'hare or Midway. So if you want to speed up the ripening process to beat the freeze, about 10 days before the date you think is most appropriate for your area, you may want to root prune your tomatoes. To speed ripening late in the season, it is generally recommended that you "root prune" your plants by either grasping the main stem close to the ground and give it a good jerk while twisting slightly, or taking a shovel and driving the blade into the ground 8-10" a few inches from the main stem on two sides. What that does is stress the plant so that it "panics" and starts ripening the fruit earlier than it would normally. Betsy Here is a link that might be useful: Illinois Freeze / Frost Occurrence Data