NEVER tabletop ripen them in the sun or on a sunny window ledge. They will ripen just fine indoors in the shade without danger of dehydration. When I'm outdoors picking, well, I pick! Any tomato within a few days of ripe gets picked. I'm just not going outside to pick everyday and that's that! LOL Seriously, a tomato picked a few days before total juicy ripe ripens just fine indoors. I can tell no difference between a tomato ready to eat the day I pick it or one that I pick 3 or 4 days early and allow it to fully ripen on my kitchen table. (Or dining room table if the kitchen is already full of em) Picking a few days early also gives added protection against rodent bites, splitting if heavy rains are coming and bird pecks. Anyone who differs I bet I can fool them with a blind taste. :) That all being said, there is something to be said for the fact that it's hard to beat eating a nice totally ripe and warm from the sun tomato seconds after it's picked...:)

For just the reasons you mention, we pick at break stage and ripen on the kitchen counter and no, we find no loss in flavor. But as you said, try it both ways and see which you prefer. ;)

You'll find several previous discussions here on this question if you want to browse through them. I linked one below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: When to pick

thanks bigdaddyj and digdirt. the answer is exactly what I was hoping for :-)

that link was very helpful.
my bad for not doing a search for this before asking.

my personal opinion is the reason storebought is less tasty is they sell tougher skinned tomatoes to minimize bruising for shipping. emphasis on how they look rather than how they taste. the juiciest ones are more easily bruised aren't they?

Your personal opinion is correct! Commercial varieties are usually tough skinned, machine picked green and sprayed to ripen en route to retailers. I can't bare to even look at them much less eat them...:)

I pick early for the same reasons as others have mentioned above - and I always go thru and pick before an expected rain or before I water whenever I can. I'm fairly picky about tomatoes, and honestly I just don't see any difference in taste when they are picked when you start to see a blush as opposed to fully "vine ripened". Some will even make the argument that toms left on the vine until 100% dead ripe may not always be the best idea for optimal flavor purposes, and if memory serves, barkeater has posted some information/links about this and why before.

Also agreed with the advice not to set picked tomatoes in a sunny windowsill, etc. to ripen. Best to set them somewhere on the counter where they are not in any direct sun.

High Neighbor,

I think I've said over at the Florida forum that I pick early or lose half my maters to the mockingbirds. We're picking as much as 4-5 days early and they still taste marvelous left to ripen in the kitchen out of the sunlight ;-)

Tom

Hmmm
I have a question that popped in my head. Why is it OK for a tomato on the vine to be in the sun but not on the countertop/windowsill?
I respect your knowledge that they don't taste as good, but why?

naplesgardener, toms on the vine are connected to nutrients from the plant. Picked toms allowed to sit in the sun for days dehydrate and sometimes get crud around any cracks and this crud, fungus, crap, whatever it is developes quicker in sun and heat than in cool and shade.

Commercial varieties are usually tough skinned, machine picked green and sprayed to ripen en route to retailers. I can't bare to even look at them much less eat them...:)

Having spent half my adult life in Hillsboro County (home of the Ruskin Tomato) and getting to know a Tomato Broker from there fairly well I heard many a story about how they gas them in transit to give them that nice color even though they are still really not ripe...just look at the little silver flecks in the skin and the gassing process is obvious.

Silly question, what is the break stage considered? When just turning from green to orange? I just picked a low tomato because my dog will eat them, so I am always in battle and ever watchful. :)

The one I picked was just starting to show shades of orange on the top and bottom of the fruit. Is this too early?

There are a couple of color charts someplace on the web showing the stages for round red tomatoes. Breaker stage 1 is just before first color. Green turns very light and some lines develop on the bottom of the fruit. I think it is the day before you see color, but most people just consider breaker to be first sign of color on the bottom of the fruit. It's important for commercial pickers to know, but for the home garden there is no reason to pick at that stage because the fruits still have several days before they are ripe enough to get soft and possibly split from rain, or attract animal pests. I simply pick everything with half color or more every few days. Its kind of depressing because my plants never look pretty... never any nice ripe red tomatoes on green plants.

I find that there is a lot of variability in flavor off of a single plant depending on what the weather conditions (sun and temperature) were while the green fruit was maturing, not having to do with how ripe (past breaker stage) they were when picked. Late season (cool weather cold night) fruits are the worst... Taste like store bought even if left on the plant until soft ripe.

"Late season (cool weather cold night) fruits are the worst"

That is interesting. I have not fealt my tomatoes have had deep flavor. Juicy, better then the store, but not as good as spring. Does heat make that big of a difference in flavor?

Thanks for the picking info. Will wait a little later to pick.

To me it's confusing when someone says they pick at breaker stage b/c four breaker stages are recognized in the tomato industry.

Breaker 1 is where there's just a blush at the bottom.

Breaker stage 2 is color maybe up about 1/3 of the fruit.

Breaker stage 3 is color up to about half.

Breaker stage 4 is color almost up to the stem.

I don't pick mine until there's color at least halfway up, but I guess there are folks who have critter and bird problems who might want to pick them earlier.

And most of the time I let them ripen on the vine b'c I want to. LOL It all depends on what your usage for the fruits is, how many plants/fruits you're growing and knowing what kind of shelf life they have.

And yes, shipped in fruits are picked usually at breaker 1 and then put in large chambers and gassed with ethylene gas to speed ripening.

Tomatoes normally produce ethylene gas themselves as part of the ripening process, but gassing them externally does speed up the process. And folks do the same thing when they try to ripen fruits in paper bags or wrap them in newspaper.

It's not that those shipped in ones that look anemic are unripe, rather, specific commercial varieties have been developed that are more amenable to gassing and the taste was never there in the first place. Sigh.

Carolyn

I'm a late picker type also. I am in my garden at least an hour or two a day (retarded, don't you know, since 1997) so
I can keep a sharp eye out for degree of ripening, insect problems, critters, etc.

But the experience of several here in this post regarding picking at half ripe seems to me to have a lot of merit and I think I'll play around with this next summer, a bit more than I have in the past.

I garden in an area very prone to folliage deseases so I must spray every week to 10 days or I will loose my plants.
I have always picked before spraying but I may just pick a bit more severely next year, table ripen as needed, and see how it goes.