Still a lot of green tomatoes

[smokensqueal]

Being really the first year that I'm gardening when do tomatoes quit turning? It's gotten fairly cool (50 deg f)a few nights already and I'm worried I'm going to be stuck with hundreds of green tomatoes. This year has been such a messed up year in the mid west even with my tomato plants that I started indoors this spring haven't produced many red ones yet. They are all full of green tomatoes that look like they could change at any time.

I've read that temp changes can trigger them to start changing. I was wondering if I could build a little "green house" out of plastic and cover them to keep them warm at night and maybe warm them up during the day to get them to change. Can that be done? Any thoughts or ideas would be great. I would hate to have these plant and not get much off of them when they are so full.

[dinker]

I took my full size one's off and put them in the window so they would turn red It only takes a few day's. As far as the green house I'm not the one for advice.But I don't see why it wouldnt work. But I think you might have to be carefull if the temp jumps back up out side so they don't get to hot

[brokenbar]

YOu can pull the whole plant and hang upside down in a garage or barn and they will continue to ripen on the vine. You can also pcik all the green ones and bring them in and they contnue to ripen. I get an extra 1000+ tomatoes this way every year.

[Marge]

I grew a load of tomatoes this year (astro ibrido from seeds of Italy), and because the UK has had such a *ahem* not very good summer most of the tomatoes stayed green.

I took a few inside and sat them with a ripening banana to make them go red. This did work but the thought of doing that with so many tomatoes was more than I could take.

I did a bit of digging around (no pun intended) and found a really good green tomato chutney recipe. I have adapted it to suit my own needs and have put it on my blog. ( [url]https://margeland.co.uk/blog/2008/09/17/green-tomato-chutney/[/url] )

I ended up making 8 standard jam sized jars of the stuff and not only is it delicious, but also a great way to use up unripened tomatoes.