Mine are late too. Usually by this time I have ripe ones but I am going to stop watering them to help ripen them up.

I did see a couple of small ones coloring up- Juliet, when I went out today so maybe they're about to start.:-) There seem to be quite a few green tomatoes set on so perhaps it will be a good tomato season even though late. This year I have 60 plants out instead of 100. It depends on fall weather and rains too.

Mine are really late also, even "Tumbler" but I finally have a few starting to turn orange. I have them in pots and I cut most of the leaves off and all the new shoots and let them dry out more. This seems to have worked.

I have 9 different varieties in pots. My Oregon Spring, Stupice and other early varieties have not ripened at all. I picked my first Juliet, July 1st. Have been harvesting Gold Nugget for about a month (about 50 toms, so far)after cutting back on watering. I snipped off all new blooms and a few leaves today to promote ripening. Hope it works!

My brother's cherry tomatoes are doing ok, but my Early Girls that I planted very early have tiny ripe fruit. My mid-season Momomatoes are still green. I've read that we've essentially skipped a month, weather wise.

I somehow doubt we'll have August in September, so it may come a time when I pull the green ones for ripening on the window sill.

Heck of a first year gardening, hehe.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure!

Lots of big green tomatoes on my Early Girl - and one bright red one stuck out like a sore thumb! Go figure! Picked it tonight.

I've got tomatoes trained up on strings and in self-watering containers. So far I've mainly been harvesting the cherry tomatoes, although the vines are starting to produce. I've also wacked off the tops so the plant can concentrate on ripening instead of on growing more. Another trick I've heard of for later on is to have initally planted the maters horizontally and planted a stake where the root ball was. Then in late September take a shovel and cut through the initial root ball. Apparently this stimulates the plant to ripen the fruits.

I picked some cherry tomatoes finally and Verna's Orange Oxheart is ripening one. Hopefully there will be many getting ripe soon.:-P

I don't recall such a late season. I was hopeful when one mid size yellow (Taxi) produced one ripe tomato by mid July. My most reliable early tomato (Matina) is just now producing but the fruits are much smaller than usual. Taxi is close to ripening more at last. MY good old standby (Siletz) has yet to produce a single ripe fruit. Principe Borghese has lots of almost ripe fruit but Black Prince which is generally the earlier of the 2 is still poison green. My larger heirlooms (Pink Accordion, Gold Medal, Green Zebra) are either going to be very small or not ripe until late September.

I grew from seed a cherry rainbow mix which started ripening a week or so ago. However, they are not very tasty. I wonder if I'm picking too soon after they get color. They easily release from the vine when lifted. How long can they be left on the vine before harvest? It's been a few years since I grew cherry tomatoes.

This has been a disappointing year, esp. with the weather forecast for the coming week. My Sungolds have started to ripen, as have my Taxi and Santian. The Cherry Chocolates and Sun Sugar are just beginning to ripen, and so are the Manitobas. I have lots of green fruit on my Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, and another japanese variety (something-moto) and I hope to goodness they'll at least get a blush on them so they can continue to ripen on the windowsill if the summer is permanently over...maybe we'll get lucky and have an Indian summer of sorts.

This has been my worst year in eight years of growing tomatoes and I have a very warm location and usually do very well.

This year I didn't even take them out of the cold frame until late June (almost a month later than normal) and didn't harvest my first cherry tomatoes until the first of August (a month to six weeks later than normal). I have only had a handful ripen although I do have lots of green ones.

I was just looking at a green tomato pickel recipe and thinking it might be the year to give that a try.

Also the cherry tomatoes are really insipid tasting. Next year I am going to try some heirloom ones (again) they are much tastier.

I thought it was just me! I have a lot of green tomatoes and don't expect much. I got mine in late due to the long cold spring we had.

My dh and I went for an early morning walk today and is sure felt like a fall morning, cold and dewy. I think I'll be pinching blooms and growing tips today.

Same story for me here in Maple Ridge, BC. The plants are loaded, but all the fruit is green, green, green! One (yes, one) tomato on a roma plant did ripen a couple of weeks ago, but it's texture was mealy. Not sure about that particular plant anyway -- we refer to it as the mutant. We have a number of romas, plus four or five other varieties, and that one is a monster among all the others. It grew fast and tall with uncontrollable, gangly arms, requiring multiple tethers from which it always seems to be slipping free. A little frightening, that one.

I did some number crunching and came up with this.

Deviation from 59 year average @ Sea-Tac airport (from http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtavt.pl?wa7473)

2007

August +0.73
September -0.46
October -1.82
November -0.63
December -0.94

2008

January -1.26
February +1.20
March -1.73
April -2.37
May +0.74
June -2.03
July +0.01
August... still just above the mean as of today. That may change this week, however.

A really meaningful study would survey more locations.

We should probably get used to cooler summers. Smart, clever academic people believe we are just entering the cool phase of Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which we last experienced between about 1947-1976. Since then we've been spoiled. Imagine last summer only 5 degrees colder. Imagine snow and freezing temperatures in for a month in Seattle. It happened a couple times in the 1950s-60s. Who likes glaciers?? They should be happy.

I have started tomatoes in Feb, moved them later to unheated GH. I have planted some in containers( Oregon Spring, Taxi and Silver Tree, but kept containers in GH almost all June), some just in GH (sweet cluster, Campari, 4th of July), much more i have planted outside.
Results: we are almost finishing eating tomatoes in container, enjoying things from GH, outside: couple ripe on Ritgers, couple on 4th of July, one on Yellow Queen, the rest are still very green. Later then prev years definetely, but I got used to tomatoes situation in PNW and bought GH mostly because our family like tomatoes.

By the way, all remains of apples, apple juice and so on go to water tomatoes. It supposed to help them to ripe

Ugh, I'm with you all. 6 plants (4 romas and 2 slicers), and only the Early Girl has any reddening at all. And I just covered them this weekend to keep out the cold nights!

Last year I was canning by the first week of September. *sigh*

I've got 7 varieties, 13 plants. Lots of fruit and a little ripening. So far I've been able to taste Kimberly (great), Matina (a little bland but OK) and Sun Gold (really great). If Late Blight doesn't strike (fingers crossed), this should be a good if late harvest. The sun with a bit of a warm-up is supposed to be headed our way.

Same here. Lots of small, green tomatoes.

If you leave off watering and let the plant dry out does that make them ripen faster??

I noticed yesterday that I have 2 orange tomatoes on my potted plant on the deck, so I'll at least get a couple of vine ripened ones. I'm so glad we're having another week of warmer weather.

The last 2 days of sunny weather have given me a few larger tomatoes- a couple of Dix Doights, paste, and a couple of round beautiful slicers, either Legend or Kora. Some Verna's Orange Oxheart are close to ripening, and Lucky Cross is also coloring up. There are lots of green fruits so maybe if things will just stay warm there will be a decent harvest after all. I should be cooking tomato sauce by now too.:-(

Nancy

I'm hoping this warmth will stick around a while too. So far it's supposed to go into next week. It sure feels good to have the sun and warmth back.

My peppers have grown more the last few days too, but I doubt they'll ripen. I hope to get at least one ripe pink accordion since this is my first year growing it. Interesting looking fruits on it.

Yes, if you virtually stop watering them, they will ripen.

RBG- do you have your peppers in the ground? I find I get much better results with peppers and eggplant in black plastic containers, I've been getting peppers for a couple of months. Eggplants are just small fruits at this point though, it's hard to get more than one fruit per plant, hardly worth it, except that they taste so much better than store eggplants.

No, I have them in a big, black nursery pot against a south facing wall. If I had gotten them in sooner I would've had some ripe ones for sure, but it was so cool in late spring that I thought they might get stunted. I think I'll plant them earlier next year with some plastic around them for the cool weather. I had several ripe ones last year.

Never seed tomatoes in Jan. Mid April the earliest. I got so many tomatoes that I'm giving them to the chickens and others are wasting on the vine. Siletz and Pik Red are very big and meaty with thin skins. The Early Girls are chicken food.

Wish I was one of your chickens!

I haven't tried it but read that green tomatoes taste good sliced in pickle juice after 3 weeks. I've never tried fried green tomatoes either.