Tomatoes in the greenhouse are slowly but surely ripening, with several blushing every day. I keep harvesting them at a pace of approximately 500 g every two to three days.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Outdoors, however, not a single tomato has gone red yet.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

This was the first time in years that I managed to keep my outdoor tomatoes completely blight and mold-free, so it would be a real shame if they did not ripen at all in the end.

I am growing determinate tomatoes, which generally do not need to be pruned – after they reach a certain size, they should stop growing, ripen, and die off. However, I have a fairly short growing season, and they never get to live their full life span, even in the greenhouse, let alone outdoors. Thus, at the beginning of September, I started trimming off all newly sprouting buds, clipping the tops of all vines, and removing all blossoms. I do this in the greenhouse too, every year.

Theoretically, this should stress the plants and convince them that times are getting hard and they should hasten the ripening of fruits in order to propagate. It also redirects growth hormones and resources from flowers and buds that would be doomed to fail (which the plant does not know) into the already developing fruits. I am not aware of scientific studies looking into this, but from my personal experience, if I did nothing, the plants would try to grow more and more, and then, when the temperatures suddenly drop off sometime towards the end of September, I’d be left with a huge green, inedible mess. I will let you know if this worked. The weather forecast so far speaks about a warm and dry September, which does give me hope.