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Best time to harvest tomatoes


When to pick tomatoes for the best flavor and fruit quality

A fully ripe homegrown tomato is the highlight of the summer vegetable garden. Yet a ripe tomato is also susceptible to splitting, cracking, and pests. The good news is that there are two ways to harvest tomatoes; when the fruits are fully ripe or when they’re only partially ripe. There are benefits and drawbacks to each strategy. Keep reading to learn more about when to pick tomatoes.

Learning when to pick tomatoes is an important skill for a vegetable gardener to learn. The most common time to harvest is when the fruits are fully ripe, but you can also pick semi-ripe fruits and let them finish maturing indoors.

When to pick tomatoes: two strategies

As a tomato ripens, its color deepens, the sugar content rises, and the fruits soften. Traditionally garden tomatoes are picked when fully mature, but in reality ripening can happen on the vine or on your kitchen counter. In fact, I’ve found that there are advantages to harvesting tomatoes before they’re fully ripe; fewer pest issues, less cracking and splitting, and reliable ripening.  Below you’ll find information on harvesting both ripe and partially ripe tomatoes as well as tips on how to ripen the fruits indoors.

When to pick ripe tomatoes

A sun-warmed ripe tomato is a summer treat that gardeners wait months to enjoy. If you have a small garden you may wish to harvest the fruits as they ripen. If you have a lot of tomato plants, it may be preferable to harvest the fruits when they’re partially ripe. Craig LeHoullier, a tomato expert who introduced gardeners to Cherokee Purple tomatoes and the author of the best-selling book Epic Tomatoes says that tomatoes allowed to ripen fully on the vine have a short shelf life and need to be eaten or cooked as soon as possible. Hello tomato sandwich! So if you’re in the garden and wondering whether your tomatoes are fully ripe, here are five cues you can use to determine if the fruits have reached peak maturity.  

1) Days to Maturity

There are thousands of varieties of tomatoes you can grow with each having a specific days to maturity. That’s the amount of time it takes to go from planting to harvest. In the case of tomatoes, the days to maturity is generally the time from transplanting, not seeding. Early maturing varieties can start to produce ripe fruits in as little as 55 days from transplanting, while late maturing varieties may need 85 or more days for the fruits to fully ripen. Because I’m in a short season climate I tend to plant mostly early and mid-season tomato varieties to ensure I have enough time to harvest a good crop of fruits before the weather turns cold. To learn the days to maturity information for a specific tomato variety, refer to the seed packet or company website. As the days to maturity nears for your specific tomato variety, the fruits should begin to ripen. 

Fruit color is often the first cue of when to harvest fully ripe tomatoes.

2) Fruit color

Another cue to the ripeness of a tomato is skin color. The skin of a fully ripe tomato should have deepened to the mature color indicated on the seed pack or in the seed catalog. It’s pretty easy to tell when a red tomato has colored up nicely, but it can be a bit trickier to tell when a purple, yellow, white, or striped variety is fully ripe. It becomes easier with experience, but if you’re not sure, check the other cues to judge whether it’s ready to pick.

3) Feel

While color is perhaps the biggest cue of ripeness, feel is also important. An unripe tomato is firm to the touch, while an overly ripe tomato is very soft. A ripe, ready-to-pick tomato should be firm, but have a little give when pressed gently with a finger or carefully squeezed. 

4) Fragrance

A couple of years ago I was in a gift store and spotted a candle called ‘vine ripened tomato’. (Here’s a similar one called ‘vine ripened tomato’ – I’m not kidding!) It’s true that ripe tomatoes do have a lovely, tomatoey fragrance, but I’m not sure I want a candle that smells like tomatoes! If you think your tomato is ready to pick, give it a quick sniff as tomatoes do become more fragrant as they ripen.  

A tomato that’s fully ripe and ready to be picked should come away from the plant with a gentle tug. That said, I prefer to harvest tomatoes using garden snips as pulling on the fruits can damage the plants or knock still-ripening fruits from the vines.

5) Ease of picking

A final cue to gauging the ripeness of a tomato is how easily it slips from the plant. I don’t recommend relying on this test as tugging tomato fruits from the plants can damage both the tomato and the plant, as well as other fruits still ripening. I prefer to check for ripeness using days to maturity, color, and feel and if I’ve decided the fruit is ready to be picked, I’ll use garden snips or hand pruners to clip it from the plant. That said, if you want to gently pull the tomato to see if it comes off the stem easily that is a sign of ripeness. If it doesn’t separate from the plant with a light tug, don’t try and force it as it’s not quite ready to pick. 

How weather can impact when to pick tomatoes

Have you ever gone out to your tomato patch after a rainstorm only to find that many of the cherry tomatoes have cracked and the large-fruited ones have split? Heavy rain, especially when it follows a period of dry weather, is a major cause of cracked and split fruits. Unripe fruit may be affected as well, but it’s typically ripe or almost-ripe fruits that are damaged. Cracked and split fruits spoil quickly and can attract insect pests as well as larger critters. For this reason it’s important to harvest ripe or almost ripe tomatoes before a heavy rain or a deep watering.

Another way weather can factor into deciding when to harvest tomatoes is towards the end of the growing season when the days are getting cooler and shorter. Cool weather can slow ripening and frost can damage both the plants and the fruits. I keep an eye on the forecast and if the first frost or a steep temperature dip threatens, I harvest all unripe tomatoes. Fully green tomatoes won’t ripen well and we use them to make chow chow or fried green tomatoes. Partially ripe tomatoes are placed in a single layer in baskets or boxes and brought indoors to ripen fully.

One of the risks of leaving tomatoes to ripen fully on the plants is that they may fall prey to pests like deer, rabbits, or chipmunks.

Harvesting unripe tomatoes

There are several reasons to consider harvesting tomatoes before they’re fully ripe. Craig LeHoullier says letting tomatoes ripen completely on the vine can lead to a couple of issues. “First, allowing fruits to fully ripen on the plants can result in a greater likelihood of cracking,” he says. “Since the tomato is fully grown, size-wise, any uptake of water from rain or watering can cause a split as the skin cells can’t divide to accommodate the swelling of the flesh.”

Another issue is pests. “Ripe fruits smell great and are a far greater attraction to critters than unripe fruits,” says Craig. Potential tomato thieves include deer, rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks, and squirrels. I’ve even found slugs feasting on the ripe tomatoes in my garden! So when does Craig harvest his homegrown tomatoes? ” I pick the tomatoes when half to three-quarters of the fruit is colored, but the shoulder part is still green,” he says. “I find there is less cracking and less critter damage potential. ” And once harvested it only takes a day or two on the kitchen counter (or another spot out of direct sunlight) for the fruits to finish ripening. “The flavor and texture of the early harvested fruits can’t be distinguished from ones ripened on the vine,” says Craig.

Tomatoes can be harvested anytime they’ve begun to show a bit of color. Bring them indoors and they’ll ripen within a few days.

When to pick unripe tomatoes

We know we want to eat our tomatoes when they’re fully ripe, but as Craig says you don’t have to wait until the fruits are ripe to harvest. You can ripen tomatoes on the vine or you can ripen them off the vine. There are six stages in the ripening process for a tomato:

  1. Green – At the green stage the fruit is completely green with none of the mature color beginning to show. If picked at this stage the flavor and color of the green fruits won’t fully develop.
  2. Breaker – This is the point where the green color of the fruit ‘breaks’ and begins to hint of the mature color. In the breaker stage up to 10% of the fruit may be pink, red, yellow, etc. A tomato can be picked at this stage and expected to fully ripen indoors. 
  3. Turning stage – At the turning stage between 10 and 30% of the fruit has colored. 
  4. Pink – Between 30 to 60% of the fruit has colored up.
  5. Light red – The light red stage is getting close to fully ripe with 60 to 90% of the color developed. This is the stage I harvest large-fruited heirloom tomatoes.
  6. Red or fully ripe – If a fully ripe tomato is what you crave, wait until more than 90% of the fruit is showing its red (or yellow, orange, etc.) color. 

Why are the stages of ripeness important to know? If you’re picking tomatoes immature with the intention of allowing them to ripen indoors you can harvest anytime they reach the breaker stage without sacrificing flavor or nutrition.

How to ripen tomatoes indoors

If you harvest tomatoes immature – anytime past the breaker stage – you’ll want to bring them inside and place them in a bright location away from direct sunlight. I don’t recommend a sunny windowsill as bright light can toughen up the skins. I use a corner of my kitchen counter or if they’re in the breaker or turning stage I’ll lay them in a single layer in a box or basket and place them in an out-of-the way spot. Space the tomatoes so they’re not touching and check them twice a week removing any that have ripened or show signs of rot. You don’t need high temperatures to ripen tomatoes. Average room temperature, or slightly cooler is fine, but avoid the refrigerator as the fruits won’t ripen well and may become mealy.

You can also place them in a paper bag and roll the top of the bag closed. The tomatoes give off ethylene gas as they mature and that prompts the unripe tomatoes to turn red. Adding a banana to the bag provides ethylene gas and can also speed up ripening but I find it makes my tomatoes taste like bananas! Therefore I avoid the banana trick.

It’s a good idea to harvest ripe or almost ripe tomatoes before a heavy rain or deep irrigation. A sudden influx of water can cause fruits to crack or split.

When to pick heirloom tomatoes

I wait all spring and summer to enjoy fully ripe Brandywine Pink or Black Krim tomatoes from my garden. I grow a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes and have found that it’s best to harvest large-fruited heirlooms when they are slightly underripe. If you wait until they’re fully colored they’re often over mature and may split or rot. Instead harvest when they’re half to three-quarters ripe and let them finish up indoors.

When to pick cherry tomatoes

Cherry and other small-fruited tomatoes are garden candy and plants like Sungold and Rapunzel are so prolific it can be hard to stay on top of the harvest. I check my plants daily in summer, harvesting all of the ripe or nearly ripe fruits. Cherry tomatoes are produced in trusses, sometimes with dozens of fruits per truss. They won’t ripen at the same time so don’t wait for the entire truss to color up before you harvest cherry tomatoes. A fully ripe truss may look impressive in an Instagram post, but by the time the bottom fruits have matured, the top ones have likely split. Instead harvest cherry, grape, and currant tomatoes when the individual fruits have turned their mature color. 

Cherry tomatoes ripen quickly in the garden and I try to harvest every day, especially if rain is in the forecast as the small fruits are prone to splitting in wet weather.

How often to pick tomatoes

To reduce the risk of cracked or split fruits check plants regularly and remove any that are ripe. I give my cherry tomato plants a daily check once the first fruits begin to ripen. For large-fruited, saladette, and plum tomatoes I inspect the plants every few days.

How to pick tomatoes

There have been many occasions (too many!) where I’ve gone up to the garden to grab a tomato and realize that there are a bunch of fully ripe fruits ready to pick. Not wanting them to fall prey to pests or split on the vine, I used my shirt as a make-shift basket to try to carry as many as I could back to the kitchen. Of course this meant I ended up accidentally squishing or bruising some of the fruits. To prevent unnecessary damage I now keep a wire harvest basket in the garden. This weather-proof basket is always handy when there’s a bounty of homegrown tomatoes to pick and lets me take them into the house damage-free. If I have a lot of fruits, I’ll also grab my Maine garden hod, which has plenty of space for transporting tomatoes.

When you do pick tomatoes – ripe or unripe – don’t tug or pull them from the plant. This can damage the plant or knock off immature fruits. Instead use garden snips or shears to clip fruits off the vine.

The best way to harvest tomatoes is to clip them using garden snips or pruning shears.

For further reading, be sure to check out these articles:

Do you have any advice to add on when to pick tomatoes? 

 

Picking Tomatoes - When Are Tomatoes Ready To Harvest

Home › Edible Gardens › Vegetables › Tomatoes

Tomatoes

By: Amy Grant

Image by kieferpix

When it’s harvest time for tomatoes, I think there should be a celebration; perhaps a federal holiday should be declared– I love this fruit so much. There are a multitude of ways to prepare tomatoes from dried to roasted, to stewed, canned, even frozen (as many as there are tomato varieties).

If you’re lucky enough to be able to grow your own tomatoes, the question is when are tomatoes ready to harvest? Tomatoes are sneaky. We’re used to purchasing vibrant red tomatoes from the grocers, but the fact is that color is not a good indicator of when to pick tomatoes. Waiting for a time when the fruit is uniformly red may be a little late for picking the tomatoes.

When to Pick Tomatoes

Tomatoes are gassy– I mean they emit a gas. Ethylene gas is produced by fully formed mature green tomatoes. Inside the mature green tomato, two growth hormones change and cause the production of the gas, which in turn ages the cells of the fruit, resulting in softening and loss of the green color, turning into a red shade. The ethylene increases the carotenoids (red and yellow colors) and decreases the chlorophyll (green color).

It is because of this process, tomatoes are one of the only vegetables, I mean fruit, which can be picked before it is completely ripened. Harvest time for tomatoes should ideally occur when the fruit is a mature green and then allowed to ripen off the vine. This prevents splitting or bruising and allows for a measure of control over the ripening process.

How to Harvest Tomato Fruit

Harvest time for tomatoes will occur at the end of its growing season, usually late summer, once the tomatoes are at their mature green stage. Tomatoes harvested before this, such as those you buy at the supermarket, have often been picked before this stage so they can ripen during transport and, thus, have a lesser flavor than those left on the vine a bit longer.

There is a fine line when picking tomatoes at the mature green stage. Look for the first light blush of color as an indicator of when to pick tomatoes to ensure no loss in their essence. Of course, you can also harvest tomato fruit when it is ripe; ripe fruit will sink in water. These vine ripened tomatoes may be the sweetest, but some types of tomato are too heavy to vine ripen, hence picking tomatoes at their mature green stage and allowing the ethylene gas to continue the ripening process.

The “how” to harvest tomato fruit is pretty basic. Watch the bottom of the fruit carefully, as this is where tomatoes begin to ripen, especially large heirloom varieties. Lightly squeeze the fruit to test for firmness. Once the first bloom of red appears on the skin of the tomato, harvest time for tomatoes are nigh.

Grasp the fruit firmly, but gently, and pull from the plant by holding the stem with one hand and the fruit with the other, breaking the stalk just above the calyx that has formed to protect the bud.

Once you’ve harvested the tomatoes, store them indoors to continue to ripen. Green tomatoes will ripen faster if wrapped in newsprint, which will contain the ethylene gas and hasten the process. Store them at 55 to 70 degrees F. (13-21 C.)– or cooler if you wish to slow the ripening and warmer to hasten it– and check routinely for ripeness. They may last from three to five weeks stored this way.

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When to harvest and how to quickly ripen tomatoes at home, August 2022 - August 14, 2022

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No need to put tomatoes on the windowsill - there are other methods they start to sing, it’s better to take it off the bush and not waitPhoto: Depositphotos

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When to pick tomatoes and whether to pick them green are questions that many summer residents ask. It's time to start harvesting and processing it properly. Together with experts, we tell you under what conditions you need to urgently remove tomatoes from the garden, and also share simple and effective ways to ripen - or ripen - tomatoes.

In central Russia and warmer regions, ripe tomatoes are already harvested in August. In most regions, tomatoes usually turn red in September. But leaving all the fruits on the bushes and waiting for them to fully ripen is a dangerous undertaking: the weather can be very unpredictable.

- The starting point of the mass picking of tomatoes on the street is a serious cold snap. As soon as the air temperature drops below +10 degrees at night and at the same time there are quite active precipitations, it is time to pick tomatoes in the open ground, - says Lyudmila Shubina, agronomist, candidate of agricultural sciences.

The conditions described above are ideal for the development of late blight, which now poses the greatest threat to the crop.

— Late blight is a disease that can lead to massive spoilage and death of tomato crops. Blurry spots appear on the fruits, which spread very quickly, and it is no longer possible to eliminate them when they appear on the fruits, because the fungus develops in the tissues, - explained Yuri Fotev, Ph.D.

In case of late blight, it is necessary to remove the diseased leaves from the bushes and treat the plants with biological preparations - now experts do not recommend using chemistry.

Pick tomatoes outside in dry weather.

— The first two brushes are now ready to be removed, especially those that have a blush ripeness: they have grown in volume, but they need a day or two before they turn red. Don't keep them on the bush. In this way, we will accelerate the growth of other smaller fruits and increase our harvest,” explained Lyudmila Shubina.

Yellowed, stained fruits should also be removed from the tomatoes so that they do not spread the infection to other tomatoes.

In Siberia, you can wait for red tomatoes in a greenhouse, but it's better not to risk it with open groundPhoto: Depositphotos

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— As a rule, picking green tomatoes does not lead to a significant deterioration in nutritional quality, — said Yuri Fotev. - This reduces the amount of sugar in them. Fruits that have not ripened on plants have an incomplete set of useful nutrients, but this is better than losing the crop.

Picked tomatoes do not need direct sunlight to ripen. It is better to find a warm, secluded place and scatter them there. Ripe tomatoes from the windowsill are only suitable for salads; it is better not to use them in preparations.

Most importantly, don't forget to put a ripe, red tomato with the green ones.

— Ripening fruits emit a specific ripening gas — ethylene, and it contributes to the fact that nearby tomatoes begin to ripen faster, — explained Lyudmila Shubina. - You can also put a ripe apple or banana.

Heat will also speed up the ripening of tomatoes, so many people put the fruits in felt boots and cover them with a blanket.

- You can cover the tomatoes with a warm dark cloth: a woolen rag, but natural, so that there is good air exchange, - the agronomist notes.

Much later it will be possible to simply pull out a bush with fruits and hang it up. So the fruits will ripen much faster. This is also a fairly effective method, but short-term and inconvenient.

Tomatoes that begin to sing, it is better to take them off the bush and not waitPhoto: DepositphotosIn Siberia, you can wait for red tomatoes in a greenhouse, but it’s better not to risk it with open groundPhoto: Depositphotos0050 Related

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Tomato harvesting dates. When to harvest?

Home / Garden in the country / Vegetables / When is the best time to harvest tomatoes

07/23/2017 Vegetables

Tomato is one of the most common vegetable crops grown in greenhouses and in open ground. The biochemical composition of tomatoes varies significantly depending on the growing conditions. It is closely related to quality and changes during the growing season, depending on the degree of ripeness of the fruit and during storage.

Tomatoes taken from the bush when unripe may ripen during storage, while acquiring their characteristic taste and color.

This is explained by the fact that organic substances are pre-accumulated in tomato fruits, and then, after the accumulation stops, their chemical change occurs, which leads to fruit ripening.

Given the peculiarity of fruits to ripen during storage, they can be harvested in different degrees of ripening: milky, brown, pink.

In practice, it has become axiomatic to harvest fruits in the early phases of ripeness. This is explained by the fact that early harvested fruits, as it were, leave living space, water and nutrients for the growing "brothers".

However, this is not entirely true. The accumulation of organic substances in tomato fruits stops in the phase of milky ripeness, then biochemical transformations occur in them, which do not affect the growth of other developing fruits.

From an agronomic point of view, the best time to harvest tomatoes is when 85-90% of fruits are red or almost red in color.

Lithuanian scientists carried out experiments to determine the optimal time for harvesting tomato fruits, taking into account changes in their biochemical composition. The results of studies carried out on the Raissa tomato F1 are presented in the table.

Data from the analysis of the biochemical composition showed that the tomato fruits of different degrees of maturity differ slightly from each other in terms of sugar content, the amount of dry soluble substances and titratable acidity (see table).

Table 1. Biochemical composition of tomato fruits of varying maturity

Option

total sugar,

%

Dry soluble substances, % Vitamin 9000 C.

Acidity,

%

Carotenoids, mg/100 g Dry matter, %
Green 3.

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