Will they ripen? Will the taste be worth the effort?
Celebrity cutting planted 20230816. It was very hot but I supplied the cutting with adequate shade and water. It perked up in a week and a few days started to grow. Now it has several tomatoes and I’m wondering if they will have time to ripen. The night temps are sometimes going down to 42F. This is a test to try and determine when to plant a second crop for late Celebrity tomatoes.
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Once the color starts to shift they should go ahead and ripen even off the vine.
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You’ve probably got another 6 or 7 days…but there’s a chance I get some frost damage tonight in KY. From 34 to 43 is the range of our forecast here. I may regret not covering some tomatoes tonight…but if they get frosted, I’ll still enjoy ‘fried green tomatoes’!
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I was thinking of throwing some towels over my two remaining in-ground plants overnight. I’m further North, but the forecast sounds about the same.
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They will not ripen off the vine. Even here in zone 9, the 2nd time will not ripen for big tomatoes. You pick them before frost and ripen them off the counter top.
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OP cardboard box, layer of tomatoes, layer of newspaper, repeat. Check them daily and remove the ripe ones. They’ll ripen a lot faster than you’d think. Have read you can also toss a bananna in with them to speed it up, never tried it. (that gas they exude)
Do it every year in more northern climes. Daughters, “clean out the garden” sale day we sell 5 gal pails of green tomatoes for good money and sell out. Wife ripens the ones we keep to can like that.
We grow mostly Early girl, have grown Manitoba and this yr grew Rocket. Don’t know if varieties make a difference?
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I had tomatoes until very recently from ripening green ones at room temperature picked about 90 days ago. Bought my first store-bought tomato just an hour ago since early July.
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same here. we had to toss a hundred or so green tomatoes due to rot. our only handy storage is a cool porch that is hard to keep from frosting when the temp dips much below high 20’s
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