When do you pick tomatoes?

[kip]

I'm growing tomatoes for the first time. I've got just one plant a 'red alert' which has got plenty of fruit on it. It was looking a bit tired with all the heat but stood it in a bowl of 'miricle grow' and it's looking much healthier now.

My question is, when do you pick the tomatoes? Do you wait for them to go red on the plant or pick them and wrap them in news paper?

[Suze01]

Unless I'm making a green tomato chutney then I'll leave them to ripen on the vine. Had some tonight - they were delicious.

[Pads]

I always pick when ripe as they have more flavour, pick green if a recipe calls for it or if you have so much fruit its causing s weight problem

[kip]

Thanks Guys

In the Uk at the mo but coming over to our place next weekend for 6 weeks. I'm going to bring my plant with me - sad but I don't want to miss the crop, besides I'm sure they'll taste much nicer ripened with french sun and a nice glass of wine in the garden.

p.s Suze loved the piccies in your link your garden looks amazing...and Robbie doesn't look bad either (I'm off to Milton Keynes in September) !!!!

[Just Katie]

Any chance of a green tomato chutney recipe?  Mind you I am being optomistic I am a calamity in the garden.  The only thing I am capable of growing is dirty fingernails[+o(]

[Suze01]

I've tried a few different recipes but this one is my favourite, Keith Floyds from the BBC food website:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/greentomatochutney_8201.shtml

[painterman]

Hi, I agree with the others about leaving the tomatoes on the plant until they are ripe, unless you want green ones for a particular recipe- but to add to this, in the past (& now) whilst still in the UK, when we have a glut of ripe tomatoes, more than we can eat fresh, then I freeze our tomatoes whole. I only grow the small vine type now (gardener's delight type) with lots of cherry size tomatoes, but if you freeze them whole until you want to make a pasta type sauce, then it doesn't matter that all shape is lost when they defrost. No tomatoes wasted then at all.I put them in plastic sandwich bags for freezing in the correct portion size that I need to use for pasta sauce- usually one medium sandwich bag size full. I usually grow between six to eight plants and this supplies us with all the summer tomatoes that we need. I never pick off the side shoots of this type of tomato plant because they are the bush sort.

The Mrs.