Tomatoes not ripening

19 years ago

Hi. I was hoping someone could tell me what's up with my tomatoes. I have about a dozen tomatoes that have been sitting on the vine, not growing and still 100% green for about 3 or 4 weeks now. I have one Early Girl plant and two Super Marmandes. It's been about 70 days since transplanting them, and it has been almost a month and half since the first fruit appeared on the vine. I was under the impression that I should have had at least one tomato start to ripen by now -- but this is the first year I've grown tomatoes.

I thought it might be because of the temperatures we've been having in the 90's (and I know tomatoes cannot fully ripen in 90+ temps), so I tried picking the whitest of the fruits and ripening it indoors, but a week and half later it's still greenish white with no sign of any pink or orange and certainly not red.

Our night temps have only dipped below 60F once since the plants set fruit, and the hottest it has been was 93F. We're in the middle of a severe drought, but we've been watering with saved bath water. I also fertilized the soil before transplanting them (in early May). Any help would be appreciated!

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Comments (7)

newcity
19 years ago
saved bath water? lol
peterrabbit
19 years ago
I am having the same problem. I am growing Super Bush Tomatoes. They have fruit on them but the plants aren't growing, aren't dying.......the fruits aren't ripening. I also have a few Big Boy tomatoes. They are growing nicely and blooming, yet no tomatoes. Help!!!
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harmonybear
Original Author
19 years ago
newcity: it takes our bath so long to heat up, we just save the two or three gallons of cold water before we start our showers.
lisalu
19 years ago
harmonybear, where are you in Georgia? I am in the Atlanta area and we've had a lot of rain in July. Even though it isn't enough to bring us out of drought it does seem like my garden has been downright soggy the last couple of weeks.

I don't have a single ripe tomato either. Better Boys, green on the vine now for almost a month. Some of them are good sized, so they are growing, but I'm beginning to wonder if they will ever ripen. I thought maybe it was because of all the cloudy days in the last couple of weeks, but I could be wrong!
harmonybear
Original Author
19 years ago
lisalu: Yeah, I'm in the Atl area, too. This last week we've had a lot of rain, but before that it seemed that all the rain just missed us. Maybe it is the cloud cover... that, or maybe it's time to fertilize again, as regina suggested.

So if it's the weather, there's nothing I can do I guess. Will the green tomatoes ever reach a point where they'll need to be picked, even if they're not ripening?

Thanks for the help.
lisalu
19 years ago
This is the first time I've grown tomatoes in ground (I've done containers before.) I really don't know all the "whys and what-fors" about tomatoes either!

I guess I just assumed that some sunshine is necessary for ripening...I dunno. I do know that my squash plants developed some fungus from the dampness these last couple of weeks.

I finally broke down and made Fried Green Tomatoes the other night. OMG...they were delicious. Since you are also a Southerner I'm sure you are familiar with that dish. At least we got to eat some of our tomatoes while waiting for them to ripen.

(I'm in East Cobb, BTW)
dirt_poet
19 years ago
It takes 'em a long time to ripen. Here's a cool pictorial timeline tomato truss setting and ripening. Total time from full sized fruit to ripe fruit? 23 days. Total time from setting to ripeness? 42 days.

Of course this will vary with environmental conditions and tomato variety, but rest easy, your tomatoes are probably doing just fine.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Truss Timeline