I have seen people posting about picking their green tomatoes and ripening them indoors...you may have to try that method.

To produce sturdy stems you could turn a fan on to blow air on them for 10-15 minutes a day.

To keep them from getting leggy you just have to make sure they are getting enough light.

Inadequate light produces leggy plants. There are three factors involved: how long light is available (18 hours if at all possible), how strong the light is, and how close the lights are to the plants.

If you're using fluorescents or similar lights, keep them no more than an inch above the tops of the plants. (Even if the leaves touch the lights, it won't burn them.) If you don't have a light system that allows you to adjust the height of the lights easily, what you can do is to raise the trays of seedlings, then lower the trays as the plants grow. I save styrofoam blocks and sheets, and gradually remove them as the seedlings grow. You might also use lumber or cardboard: whatever you have and whatever works (pizza boxes? children's blocks?). Just make sure it's stable and reasonably even.

If the seedlings didn't get enough light when they first sprouted, and are impossibly stretched-looking (BTDT), while that's scary and guilt-producing, the plants will usually recover. Give them close, strong light as soon as possible. Then when you pot them up, bury them deeply.

What are some things people do in cold climates to get tomatoes to Ripen and grow? Throw plastic over top of them?

Many use low-tunnels or similar types of temporary enclosures where you can control the climate to a degree.

Dave

Another thing that produces leggy tomatoes is too warm of temperatures at night. Tomatoes need temps below about 63 F at night to grow properly. but of course they should also be above say 55 at night. Your problem might be light conditions AND temperature.

For your not ripe tomato problem as summer draws to a close, you need to stress your plants a little about 2-3 weeks before your frost date. I do that by shutting the water off on them. Tomatoes are really pretty drought tolerant plants and over watered tomatoes will tend to grow vines well but the fruit will not ripen as quickly. Alternatively you could also cut the meristems (the growing tip of the tomato branches). That tells the tomato to hurry up and put their energy into the fruit and not into plant growth.

You may have too much fertilizer/nutrients in your soil. You will have a similar problem with too much N, that is green tomatoes that don't ripen or vigorous vines that produce little fruit. Finally you might try some earlier varieties.

Thanks for the replies. I did try that method of picking and bringing inside, but it didn't get the best result. Also, around the middle of September when I picked them, I think they were getting blossom end rot as well as they were splitting. I believe the splitting was caused by the fact that our hottest days of the year were in September.