Tomatoes are staying orange

[NJ Bob]

Hi. I have some beefsteak tomatoes that seem to be staying orange forever. I've been waiting to turn red before harvesting but I'm not sure they will. Any ideas?

[Peter1142]

Are they an orange variety of tomatoes? Red tomatoes don't turn orange at all. They start off pink.

[rainbowgardener]

I dunno .... seems like some of my tomatoes have been orange-y before red...

anyway here's a nice timeline of tomato development: https://web.archive.org/web/201012180503 ... s_Timeline

from showing color to ripe can easily be five days. I don't know what you meant by "forever"

[Peter1142]

I guess maybe you can say it looks a little orange-y.... but either way, if they are taking "forever" to turn red, I suspect it is an orange tomato variety. They develop color pretty rapidly outside in the summer... you couldn't stop it if you wanted to. Are they soft or firm? Take a picture?

[NJ Bob]

It's strange. I got the seeds from tomatoes I grew last year. I'm almost positive they didn't behave like this.

[PaulF]

If the tomato in question remains "orang-y" I would suspect that last year's tomato was crossed either by a pollinator or somehow by the wind blowing pollen or two plants in the same general space sharing pollen. Outside chance a stray seed got in the batch somehow. Maybe it will turn out to be a good cross. Could be weather conditions are such that this year it grows and develops differently.

[dtizme]

Maybe they are orange tomatoes. How long have they been orange for? I've recently picked a few of my early girls. They went from orange to red but were only orange for a few days. I'd say if they've been orange for more than a week chances are they are orange tomatoes. Also give them a little squeeze and see how they feel. If there not ripe they should still be hard.