I have been pondering this question as I tie up my tomato vines. It does sound like a good idea. I think it would depend on the variety and how long it takes it to fruit. Small tomatoes can ripen much faster than large tomatoes. I was thinking a good experiment would be to mark and date newly set on tomatoes and keep track of how long it takes them to ripen.

I think it all depends on how long your growing season is. The indeterminate type of tomatoes would be the ones to pinch flowers off, Hemnancy makes a good point in keeping track of how long it takes your tomatoes to ripen.

A......

I hadn't thought of that! I have two Early Girls and two Sweet 100's. I'm going to mark them and experiment. Will report back.

(Glad to hear that others consider it as well - thanks!)

I usually do pinch off new blooms later in the season, but I've never tracked the exact date of when I do this. I wouldn't do it on cherry tomatoes, since they ripen pretty quickly, but I would do it for the ones that have a longer maturity rate. I'm growing a lot of heirlooms this year, some with longer maturity rates, i.e. 80-90 days and our weather has not been so great. I have lots of green, fairly large toms on the vine but they're taking forever to ripen. With the way our summer has been going, I will probably start pinching off buds from some of these. I want at least some ripe tomatoes by the end of this month!

Yes I do it every year.I get bigger tomatoes that way because the energy goes into maturing them.Few years ago I had a lovely tomatoe full of green tomatoes that I never enjoyed.It was full of them and really nice looking also.I had friends gardeners tell me to cover the plant with foil so they would mature.I was also told to put them in a box wrapped individually in newspaper.It all failed, so now I just cut off the tops and any succers and don't even allow more flowers.I do have lots of plants so I get enough tomatoes.Maybe if I had only one plant I would keep them longer but in my case form end of July no more.It works for me and I get enough...