Cool! It was an accidental find while looking at Lowe’s with friend (it’s their garden, officially).
Question for all you pros: When do I pull the tomatoes? When they start to turn orange or do I wait for red?
I’m hesitant when I still see green because I’m not sure what the “table ripe” window is. TIA
I always leave my tomatoes on the vine until red/ripe. They taste much better!
At the END of your growing season, but before a hard freeze (32 degrees & below) if you have a lot of full-size but still-green tomatoes, you can wrap each separately in b&w newspaper, store them in a single layer in a box or basket, and keep them somewhere cool and dark (unheated basement, or a garage that won’t get below 40 degrees) and they’ll ripen up just fine, in a few weeks.
I harvest the tomatoes a little early, otherwise, they’ll often rot on the vine. They WILL continue to ripen after being picked.
It’s hard to say exactly when I’ll pick them. When they’re showing some good color, earlier if I see any spots that might turn mushy. I lose a lot of them that way. Sometimes I’ll see a good one, especially those close to the ground and then grab it; splat! A fully mushed one! Sometimes a slug, bird or mouse will take a bite and cause premature rot.
Better to throw those out!
If they have the slightest blush, they will ripen very well, especially if you wrap them in newspaper or paper towel.
How quick I pick them, depends on the squirrels. In very dry years, they will go after the green ones, so I pick them the instant they have blush.
In normal years, I let them go a while longer, but letting them go to full red, is so tempting to various critters, that I don’t do that except for the ones that are indoors.