Tomatoes- any hope of ripening now?

[GailTheSnail]

I've grown some tomatoes for the first time this year. I might have planted too late and they are only starting to fruit some green ones now. Is there any hope or them ripening before the weather gets cold again? I am in north west England. Thanks

There is a bit of sun forecast here for the end of the week; after that I'd probably harvest them and bring them inside onto a sunny windowsill and they might ripen. Especially if you give them a banana or couple of already-ripe tomatoes to snuggle up with.

Mine have been ripening OK. At the end of the season I put the green ones in a paper bag in a dark place (a drawer) and they ripen themselves.

As above. Green tomato chutney too.

I'm in South Yorkshire. Got my first ripe ones this year. Started them inside at the end of Feb!!

North East here and still ripening daily!

Imam NE Scotland, have had two ripe toms. Some of the rest are just starting to colour a bit. Last year I had tons of them, but this year they were slow,to germinate, and not good at setting fruit. I have noticed a dearth of insects this year too 😟

I’m in the South East and have harvested ripe tomatoes well into November most years.

I usually just leave them on the plant until it starts to die, then I hang the trusses on a string across the greenhouse and leave them there til they ripen, sometimes as late as December. I grow them in the gh too, too cold for outside!

I've picked in November after a mild autumn.

We had the same worry and read that you can ripen them by putting them in a bag with an apple. Seems to be working well, just picking a few green ones every couple of days then ripening them up so we have a constant stream of fresh tomatoes.

i read that it is good to soak a banana skin in water and use the water on the plants. I did it and my (outdoor) tomatoes have ripened well. I left the skin near the base of the plant.

Pick them and put them on a warm windowsill in the sunlight. They'll ripen much quicker in the warm now than they will outside.

NE England. I expect to be ripening them on the plants (in greenhouse) till end Sep

Mine are still ripening, but the red are splitting on the vine, whereas the sungolds are not.

I grow mine outdoors as no greenhouse.

Helen, I had a bit of a glut of sungolds. I cut them in half and put them, cut side up, in a Pyrex dish. I added olive oil, a bit of sugar and dried basil. I had just taken our meal out of the oven, so turned it up as high as it would go for a few minutes, put the tomatoes in, turned the oven off and left it overnight.

Next day I mopped up some of the oil with soda bread, added the tomatoes, a bit of cheese and red onion chutney and had a lovely lunch.

https://lovelygreens.com/spicy-green-tomato-chutney/

this is a lovely recipe and easy if they don’t ripen.

DH was having this problem so put some bananas in the greenhouse, it seems to be helping.

Cut the foliage back to maximise the light getting to the tomatoes, first of all. Leave them in the greenhouse for a bit longer.

If the green fruit is immature it will never ripen, which is the rationale for leaving them on the plant as long as you can.

When they shown signs of starting to slightly ripen, you can bring them indoors and put them somewhere sunny - even better if you have a banana nearby as they emit ethane which triggers a ripening response.

In dire straits, you can put your tomatoes in a bag with the banana, but keep and eye on it as they can go over quite quickly and you go from under-ripe to too squishy as soon as you take your eye off the ball.

As a PP has said, you can always make green tomato chutney with any stubbornly unripe ones. I've used this one for many years and swear by it -

https://www.allotment-garden.org/recipe/906/green-tomato-chutney-recipe/