Tomatoes - ripening one...by...one...by...one

[KittenKong]

Is this normal?

I have quite a good crop this year but each ‘bunch’ just ripens one at a time, and so slowly!

How do supermarkets manage to sell whole vines of ripe ones?

Your tomatoes are normal.

I have never worked out how the supermarkets get their tomatoes to do that.

My MiL ripens them on the windowsill. Wash the tomatoes you want to ripen, dry them and place along a sill not touching each other.

I had a single whole cherry tomato with my mushrooms on toast the other day.

It was beautifully sweet!

Yes, it's normal. The flowers open from base up, so the tomatoes ripen from base up. Happens to a slight extent with supermarket tomatoes too - the ones at the base are slightly riper, and quicker to go squodgy.

Supermarkets pick the tomatoes green then put them in an ethylene-rich atmosphere to stimulate rapid ripening of the whole bunch together.

Tomatoes will continue to ripen after you've picked them but they taste better if left to ripen on the plant.

The reason for growing several tomato plants is you can each day pick a couple of tomatoes from each plant and end up with a good handful.

I found this year that my plum tomatoes are ripening in bunches on the vine. Look lovely, my usual cherry tomatoes are doing the scattered one by one an random parts of the plant.

I had this with blueberries! Completely pointless, three or four at a time. You must have to have loads of bushes to get enough for breakfast.

I have loads of bushes and they are growing really well this year. Just ripening very slowly!

I wish I knew the variety. I bought a few small plants from Sainsbury’s (and they grew like triffids but didn’t say the variety) and sowed a pack that I found in a cupboard (the pack was of date but I thought I’d try, and these also grew like topsy).

As long as I just need a garnish I’m fine. Tomato soup won’t be an option!