Green Tomatoes

[Millymollymandy]

Guess what I've got!!!!! A bush cherry tom turning yellow!!! I thought it was one of the yellow courgettes showing through the plant (they are planted behind the toms) but no, it was a tomato! I'm not sure if they are supposed to be yellow or orange but they are not a red variety. I think they are called Golden Nugget. (Must go and check )

Little things etc.......

Will try the banana skin trick too as I eat a banana every day!

[libran]

Can't remember the variety but many years(about the 1990's) ago my dad grew a special cherry tomato that was yellow. There were absolutely loads on the plant and they were lovely and sweet. Can't ask him which variety though because he died 2 years ago but he loved his gardening. If anyone knows the variety let us know.
I have a banana every day as well so I will try the banana skin trick. At the moment the skins go in my compost bin.

[ina]

Either I have to increase my consumption of bananas, or I'll have to wait for the tomatoes to ripen the "natural" way... My goats love banana skin, and they get it whenever I eat one! There'd be a riot if I stick them in the tomato plants instead !

Mind you, they only get the skins of organic bananas. I'm not usually so 200% fanatic about feeding them only organic stuff, but bananas get sprayed with all sorts of chemicals on average once weekly, plus dipped in a chemical bath before shipping to prevent themf rom rotting, and I don't even want to think about the stuff that's left on the skins...

Ina

[Millymollymandy]

So will I be getting mutant tomatoes then?

[wulf]

I was just dropping a couple of banana skins among the tomatoes yesterday when I spotted my first red fruit! Yay!

Truth be told, it was a little under-ripe but hopefully a sign of things to come! By the way, you can see my crammed little tomato patch on my Flickr account (I've recently discovered this service - a great free way of sharing pictures). Here it is a couple of weeks ago:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wulf/30385635/

If you compare it to the state of things less than a month earlier, you'll see why I ended up planting everything so close:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wulf/31393553/

Wulf

[Millymollymandy]

Wow your garden has grown quickly Wulf! I was wondering where the tomato was!

I picked my first yellow cherry tom so we will have it at lunch, half each. It will be a ceremonious occasion!

[2steps]

I have some yellow cherry tomatoe plants too just flowers at the moment though

[Sarah C]

Well I hung a banana skin in each tom plant a few days ago and I still have green toms but now I also have mankey banana skins! I have changed one but still no red toms. not sure this is working for me - I can feel green chutney coming on.

[wulf]

I had another look today (yes, I've been trying banana skins as well). Moving the leaves, I noticed that there was another bunch of tomatoes starting to make the transition to ripeness. Don't give up hope!

Wulf

[Millymollymandy]

Me too! Bananas on the toms that is. I wish I could grow bananas!

And the result is...................

My plum tomatoes are still green!

Oh well, at least they haven't succumbed to blight - yet.

[Lyds]

I have only had 2 ripe cherry toms as yet. My neighbour used to leave his on the plant to ripen well into sept and then put the green ones in brown paper bags to ripen, just a few to a bag. This very definitely works as I have tried it, thanks to his advice - he died last year, we had been neighbours for 18 years and I learned alot from him.

[Millymollymandy]

My plum tomatoes are turning orange!!!

[wulf]

Hurrah!

I can join the celebrations as I spotted yesterday that a number of my cherry toms are also ripening. These ones seem to go from green to yellow to orange-tinged to pink (at which stage I ate the one example that got that far and found it a little sharp).... I'm going to try to be patient and see if they end up a nice bright red.

Wulf

[Steve M]

Mine are all green too - not worrying to much at the moment as it usually stays fairly mild into September these days. I read somewhere that sunlight was important for ripening - this appears to be true as my neighbours have theirs in a really sunny patch and they look a little more orange than mine.

Lots of useful tips posted here though, who knows if I get desperate I may well start hanging Banana's from my tomato plants!

I found removing the leaves has greatly increased my yield with each plant having at least double to what I used to get. I suppose if all else fails then theirs always green tomato chutney - anyone got any good recipes?

[Sarah C]

I am regularly changing the banana skins and hooray I have two toms starting to blush. but as I have 11 plants only 2 reds ones still means a hell of a lot of green chutney. I am now crossing everything that it is comfortable to cross and hoping that the rest will play follow my leader and go red.