Tomato's - green why?

[Kirk]

Just picked the "last" ripe tomato's I have, three and a half ripe bunches this year and each bunch was just 5 or 6 in number. All are small tomato's called Red Pear and about 20mm and 10mm at the pear shaped bit. Slice in half and throw into a salad size.

I have lots of bunches of still green ones but to date about 15 red tomato's have ripened and 4 yellow tomato's.

Last year was the same, but the odd weather last year I assumed was the reason. This year has been warm or plain hot and sunny. Previous to last year results were generally good.

Any thoughts why.
With the fairly long hot spell I had expected somewhat better.

[SarrissUK]

I've grown red pear this year and for a couple of years previous. Mine have been very productive this year. I keep mine in a greenhouse that gets a fair amount of sun, and during the summer, although my fruits set quite late, they turned red at an alarming rate - the sunnier it was, the quicker that happened.

Where do you keep your tomato plants? How much sun do they get?

At this time of year they won't turn red because of the lack of sun - just use them to make a small batch of green tomato chutney or anything else - I turned my green ones into a tomato relish.

[Kirk]

They are against a south facing wall, that gets a good amount of sun
Only 3 bunches of them have turned red, a yellow pear I have has produced either 3 or 4 yellow fruits. The other yellow Pear has produced nothing yellow at all, just lots of green unripened ones.

There are 2 others plants and they are also green and are different varieties. They are smallish round ones. All plants are good and healthy.

Really puzzled as usually I get a reasonable number.

[Jay-ell]

Cut the plants off at the base and hang them indoors upside down so the others can ripen.

[bramble]

Kirk, might it have anything to do with the time of year they were planted.
Did you sow them and plant them out early in the year.
Maybe try a different variety next season.

[It never rains..it pours]

Perhaps its a variety issue, as last ones seem to be ripening here still, albeit very slowly, but taste still different world to supermarket ones

[Kirk]

I have tended to plant both early and late on different years, depends how many seeds take or what I buy and when. Actually they are a bit of a mix of earlyand late. Small stall on a once a month Saturday market that sells plants. So depends which month and what she has at the time.

Odd this year as the Red Pear was bought then I found I had seeds for Red Pear and germinated one.

Last year was wet/cold/weird etc whereas this year was a long hot sunny spell. Same result of a few ripe ones but 90% or more remeined green.

Have had good crops, one year so many I made several containers of tomato soup and froze it to use the tomato's up.

Last 2 years plants have been strong plants - can they been to vigorous?.
One is sat there now putting out flowers still.

Need to over haul the bed as one edge (wooden sleepers) needs putting back to vertical, so can dig the whole thing over and add more manure and whatever else - might help.

Previously the currant tomato's seem to be successful, but the red+yellow pears are a good salad size when halved.

Are there lists of early/late tomato varieties?

[Penellype]

In general cherry type tomatoes will ripen earlier than bigger fruited varieties as they have less growing to do. Of the varieties I grow outdoors, Sungold is always the first to fruit.

Apart from Sungold this year I grew Red Alert, Mountain Magic, Shirley, Ferline, Crimson Crush and Oh Happy Day, plus Balconi red and yellow planted out after they had finished cropping indoors. The Red Alert were earlier than the rest of these. Shirley never produces more than a very few ripe tomatoes outdoors, it is much better in a greenhouse and I only put spare plants outdoors. Mountain Magic was slow to get started this year but produced plenty of red tomatoes, although I don't much like them (lack flavour and difficult to peel). Balconi always produce a good 2nd crop with plenty of ripe cherry tomatoes. The other 3 are beefsteak varieties which have done well outside this year, but I think this year was exceptional. I grow them realizing that if the weather is poor I may not get any ripe tomatoes from them at all.