How to Make Homegrown Tomatoes Turn Red

Seeing red? If you’re looking at your homegrown tomatoes, I hope they are a bright, cheery red color as they’re ripening on the vine.

And yet, I know that even experienced gardeners have times when their plants are nearing that all-important harvest date and the fruit is still hard and green.

At any time in the growing season, but especially if a killing frost is bearing down, your stress increases by the minute. What’s a gardener to do?

I’m going to help you out here, with several ways to encourage tomatoes to turn red on the vine.

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Some of my tips will only help you next season, when you’re back to selecting your dream heirloom varieties and planting your crop.

But there are also solutions for those in the “Ack! The tomatoes are green and autumn’s arriving” camp.

And I’ll encourage you to keep trying even if you have to pick every last green fruit, even the cherry ones, and try to ripen them indoors.

After all, red tomatoes are a delight for the eyes, and a treat for the palate. It would be awful to tend your plants for the 70-100 days most take to produce ripe fruit and then come up short at the end of the season.

These are the aspects that I’ll cover:

If your plants are producing fruit that isn’t a vivid crimson, it’s comforting to know that lots of gardeners have that complaint. After all, we all want red tomatoes!

But did you ever stop to ask why these fresh tomatoes us home growers find so desirable are red?

There’s a scientific explanation, and knowing about it can help you with your own fruits that stay