When to Pick

[karstopography]

A tomato? When do you pick and why? A first color break or when it’s completely ripe, somewhere in between?

Lots of considerations, bugs, pests, squirrels, bird threats, and inclement weather affect the decision making process.

Say none of those issues are real and say you are just looking at the taste and flavor, when is the optimum time to pick that tomato? Does that vary variety to variety?

I’ve got a big Mortgage Lifter just breaking color out on the vine. It’s my first and I want to pull it at the right time. I’ve got a little net over it, but these squirrels are numerous and clever...

[brownrexx]

I started picking my tomatoes after they start to color and I finish ripening indoors. I don't feel that it affects the flavor.

[EdieJ]

@karstopography Why take chances? Once a tomato starts to ripen it gets no more help from the parent plant anyway so you might as well pick it and get it out of harm's way. Just out of curiosity do you know which strain of Mortgage Lifter you have?

[PlainJane]

[mention]karstopography[/mention] - always just after first break.

My heart has been crushed too many times by leaving them on the vine to ripen.

[karstopography]

[mention]EdieJ[/mention] I really don’t. Picked up the 4” container set plant from our local feed store. They charged $1.65/plant, this was February 28th. I put it in the garden on the 29th. I don’t guess there’s a way to know by looking at the plant. Reifel’s where I got it might know, but, maybe not. They seem to be more about feed than the vegetables. They do get a lot of variety and they aren’t Bonnie plants, not sure who the grower is.

[EdieJ]

Well whichever strain, enjoy. And get it picked sooner rather than later!

[karstopography]

“The better part of William Shakespeare
valor is discretion“ Henry IV Part 1

So, I picked it. Hoping it was going to hit the pound mark, but it fell just a bit short.

9217BBF1-B6F0-49C8-ABB0-DC83B9C0530C.jpeg

[Ginger2778]

“The better part of William Shakespeare
valor is discretion“ Henry IV Part 1

So, I picked it. Hoping it was going to hit the pound mark, but it fell just a bit short. 9217BBF1-B6F0-49C8-ABB0-DC83B9C0530C.jpeg

It's a beauty and you did the right thing. Reiterating what [mention]EdieJ[/mention] said, once they start to blush, the plant has cut them off, they are getting nothing else from it, no reason to leave it for the critters to eat.

[Nico]

Do the seeds also ripen when a tomato that has not fully ripened is harvested?

[Ginger2778]

Do the seeds also ripen when a tomato that has not fully ripened is harvested?

Its a very good question. The seeds do ripen as long as the fruit is allowed to come to full color indoors. Almost every tomato seed you have gotten from me has come from a tomato picked at near first blush, then allowed to ripen indoors. The ripening is the key.

[Nico]

Thanks Marsha

[Sue_CT]

I do think picking early can effect flavor but on the positive side. If a large amount of rain is coming, not only can they split but they can take up more water. I find that tomatoes that receive less water once the fruit start really developing and growing, have more flavor and also keep longer. Lastly, I am more likely to use a tomato at peak ripeness without becoming over ripe, when it is inside. And some varieties seem to go from not quite ripe to over ripe more quickly than others.

No question, I prefer to pick between first blush and pink stages, no matter what the variety.

[edweather]

Yeah, I pick when blushing. The birds see them reddening to, and one day too long leads to holey fruit.

[bower]

Even in the greenhouse with no animal pests, there are many fruit I will pick before fully colored. Some tend to split as they get full ripe, that means they have no shelf life it picked too late. Others just lose their flavor if allowed to sit ripe in the greenhouse heat.
But even the fruit I try to pick at 'fully ripe' stage are almost never really ripe. I can look at them, pinch them to size them up, it doesn't matter. Almost 100% of the time, I know they are too firm and not quite there, the minute I picked em. The only exceptions, which are soft after picking, are the ones that lost their youthful freshness and zing, by sitting in too hot sun...

[Shule]

It varies from variety to variety, but I usually like to pick them as soon as they've colored all the way (and/or a little before). They're a bit more tart that way, sometimes. If I wait too long, some varieties can get overly juicy and have a chlorine or sweet and simple taste, rather than something more complex that won't make a sandwich too sopping wet.

[Nico]

I have always believed and was totally convinced that a tomato freshly picked from the plant and eaten at the right time of harvest had an incredible flavor, nothing to do with a tomato ripened at home. An example of how they ripen differently is that storage tomatoes if harvested when they are green hold much longer than they are picked ripe, with the only seeds that I have had germination problems with have been storage tomatoes matured outside the plant. Department stores also buy unripe tomatoes from the farmer so that they can last much longer for sale.and in the fridge its flavor also changes

[bower]

Temperature of ripening is for certain the flavor key. Tomatoes should be ripened within the range 60 - 70 F. Cold storage is bad, and will not develop flavor ripening below 60 F. There is flavor loss too if temp gets too high. I made the mistake one year, of bringing up a big tray of tomatoes into the living room, just when we had several hot days in a row (no air conditioning) and got well above 70 F... they quickly got overripe and were awful.

[Sue_CT]

I am not sure what you consider "storage tomatoes", but if they were refrigerated or packed away in a too cool basement or other area that could be why. We are all talking here, I believe, about ripening indoors out of direct sun but at normal, usually air conditioned, room temps and allowed to ripen naturally in that enviroment. They also must have been picked after starting to color on the plant. Picked green some but not all will still ripen inside but will not have the flavor of fruit that has been left on the plant until ripening has started naturally. You can not take green tomatoes and put them in storage and expect them to taste the same. You also cannot pick them and try to force ripening by closing in paper bags, putting them in with a banana which is a way to "gas" them at home to speed ripening, or other methods of trying to force ripening or more accurately force them to color up since I don't believe those methods actually cause the natural ripening process to take place it just causes them to change color faster without the taste development that happens with the natural ripening process.

This type of ripening means taking them off the plant, bringing them inside and placing them in normal room temps of 60-70 degrees as Bower said, and out of direct sun.

That said, anyone who prefers to ripen all tomatoes on the plant can certainly do so. It is after all, your garden, and you should do whatever brings you the most enjoyment from it. That includes ripening your tomatoes any darn way you like, lol.

[Nico]

Storage tomatoes or "ramallet" tomatoes are tomatoes that are kept for months hanging in perfect condition. You can use the translator on the following page (https://www.masmallorca.es/productos-ti ... -mill.html). I think you are right, some of my storage tomatoes I tied them outdoors and in winter it is quite cold, perhaps that is the reason that my seeds in some cases were not viable, now I am much clearer, thank you very much.
Although, I still think that a freshly harvested tomato just at the right ripening moment is perfect.

[Ginger2778]

Although, I still think that a freshly harvested tomato just at the right ripening moment is perfect.

It is perfect. It's just not necessary. If it starts to color, then picked but allowed to ripen on the counter top in your kitchen, but also to full color - every bit as perfect.