When to pick

[taradal]

I keep reading that you can pick slightly colored or even green tomatoes and they will ripen on your counter. But is there a loss of flavor, compared with tomatoes that reach full maturity on the vine?

[gumbo2176]

If you don't have any pest or plant disease issues, I'd opt to leave them on the vine to ripen. If none of the above is an issue, all you have to hope for is no real heavy rainfalls that can cause the tomatoes to split as they ripen.

I had to pick many of my tomatoes when just ripening this year due to pests taking a toll on the fruit. They still taste better than most anything you can get at the supermarket.

[gixxerific]

Once the past the "breaker stage" where they start loosing their green and start turning a bit white on their way to a final color. They are cut off from the plant. They will not recieve anything from the plant after the breaker stage.

[rainbowgardener]

But the breaker stage refers to blushed tomatoes, not green tomatoes. IMO tomatoes picked green, even though they still ripen up eventually, do not have the flavor of vine ripened.