As noted in the recent article on this blog Need to Ripen Green Tomatoes? Let's Party! by Carol King” dated 9/10/15, the methods suggested are excellent ones to help you speed some last minute ripening.
After a cool spring which slowed down the tomatoes and other warm weather vegetables, and then very hot and dry weather, the tomatoes ib my garden seemed to be taking their time ripening. I had heard about pruning your tomatoes to give the plants a break from trying to keep producing and turn their energy into ripening.
I did some light pruning, mostly to the tops of the tomatoes where there was new growth, blooms and some tiny tomatoes. Knowing that these little tomatoes would probably not reach maturity at this point in the season, I pruned them off along with the blossoms and some of the stems and hoped that this would help focus this energy into the ripening process.
It took about 10 days – 2 weeks, but I was surprised and happy to find that the full sized tomatoes, which seemed to be turning color all too slowly, finally ripening much faster. The daytime weather staying warm helped as well even though the nights are beginning to cool.
It’s hard to see an end to summer and the tomato season, but when you do get well into August and you have full sized tomatoes that are taking their time to ripen, doing some pruning really does help to speed the process. My attached pictures showing the plants just two weeks apart show that it works and I can recommend this process to anyone who wants some last minute tomatoes from their garden.