How to Ripen Tomatoes – 12 Ways to Make Tomatoes Turn Red

Are your tomatoes not turning red? Don’t worry, below are 12 tips for how to ripen tomatoes on the vine.

Most tomatoes will start turning red about 6-8 weeks after their flowers have been pollinated. If your tomatoes won’t ripen, it could be due to a variety of factors.

Green tomatoes can be the result of heat extremes, diseased leaves, and too many flowers, fruit and foliage. Luckily, all of these problems are solvable!

Keep reading to learn 12 tips for ripening tomatoes on the vine. These tricks will give you a higher producing vegetable garden this year.

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How to ripen tomatoes on the vine

Nothing is quite as frustrating as tomato plants full of green tomatoes that refuse to turn red!

If you are tired of eating fried green tomatoes at the end of each growing season, the tips below will teach you how to ripen tomatoes more quickly.

Top your tomato plants to ripen fruit

Topping is a term for cutting off the main stem of your indeterminate tomato plant. This helps to control its growth, ripen fruit, and produce larger fruit because the plant will use its energy to ripen existing fruit rather than producing more. 

Indeterminate tomato plants will continue growing until frost kills them, resulting in some of the tomatoes not ripening before the cold front arrives.

Find out more about topping tomato plants here and learn how to use the topped-off part of the stem to propagate new tomato plants. 

Add shade to tomato plants in hot temperatures

High temperatures can be a reason for tomatoes staying green.

Carotene and lycopene, which are needed for ripening tomatoes, stop being produced above 85°F (29.4°C), causing the fruit to stop ripening.

While we can’t change the temperature, adding some shade over your tomato plants will help lower the temperature around them. 

Ideally, you can place your plants in an area that gets sunlight early in the morning and shade later in the afternoon. If you can’t do this, you can place a plant umbrella over the plants to lower the temperature.

Cover the plants at night

Lycopene and carotene, which are needed for ripening, also stops being produced when the temperature falls below 50°F (10°C).

If you expect nighttime temperatures below 50°F (10°C) in your area, you should cover your tomato plants at night. This keeps your plants in their ideal temperature range which will allow the fruit to continue ripening.

Harvest tomatoes regularly to encourage ripening

Pick any existing fruit, and trim their supporting vines, as soon as the tomatoes get a tinge of color. This allows the plant to focus it’s energy on the remaining green tomatoes, making them grow larger and redder more quickly.

Any slightly ripe fruit that you harvest will continue ripening indoors.

Pinch off suckers on tomatoes

Tomato suckers are small shoots that grow in the area where the stem and branch of a tomato plant meet. These suckers won’t harm the plant but, if left to grow, they can make the plant quite large and hard to manage.

A plant with lots of suckers often has fruit that won’t ripen well since it has so many tomatoes on it.

Pinching off tomato suckers is a trick for getting tomatoes to ripen because it sends plant’s energy towards the remaining fruit. 

Remove tomato plant flowers to send energy to the green tomatoes

As we have learned, it takes several weeks for tomatoes to ripen after the flowers have been pollinated.

In late summer, the flowers on your tomato plant won’t have time to produce mature fruit. Pinch off the remaining flowers so your plant will ripening the existing green fruit.

Slow down on watering tomato plants to encourage ripening

The amount of water a tomato plant needs depends on where it is in the growth cycle. During periods of rapid growth, the plant will wilt quickly if there isn’t enough water.

However, when the temperatures are high, the plant growth slows and the need for water is also reduced. You can use this to your advantage when you are trying to encourage tomatoes to turn red.

Reducing the amount of water you give a tomato plant channels the plant’s energy into ripening the fruit rather than producing new growth.

Cut off any diseased leaves

To ripen fruit, the plant needs to be in good condition. If it has yellowed leaves, black spots on leaves, or any diseased leaves, the plant will send its energy to these areas instead of trying to ripen the fruit.

Check your plant regularly to see if any of these conditions exist. Remove the infected leaves as soon as possible when you spot them.

Prune some of the healthy leaves

It is not just diseased leaves that should be pruned to encourage tomato ripening. Trimming some of the healthy leaves also helps the green tomatoes ripen more quickly.

Note: You should never cut off all of the leaves, even when you are at the end of the growing season because it can kill the plant. A good rule of thumb with any plant is to prune about a third of the leaves.

Remove any tiny tomatoes

Small, firm, tomatoes won’t have time to ripen in late summer before the frost kills the plant. 

Remove any small tomatoes and let the plant send its energy to the larger fruit that will have a chance to ripen.

Too much fruit? Harvest it now!

If fall is approaching, and you still have a heavy crop of tomatoes on the vine, pick a few of the tomatoes that are turning pink. This allows the green tomatoes to ripen more quickly on the vine.

Bring in the tomatoes you’ve harvested inside and place them on a sunny windowsill (or in a brown paper bag on the counter) to ripen them.

Hang the plant upside down to ripen the green tomatoes

If fall is approaching and you have tried all the tips above for ripening the tomatoes on the vine, but the fruit is still green, there is one last resort you can try.

Pull out the entire plant and hang it upside down in a garage, greenhouse, or shed where it will be protected from the elements and cooler weather.

Most of the fruit that you hang upside down will ripen. They may not taste as great as the vine ripened tomatoes, but it’s better than throwing them on the compost pile!

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Admin note: this post explaining how to ripen tomatoes on the vine first appeared on the blog in August of 2014. I have updated the post to add all new photos, more tips, a video and a printable for you to enjoy.

Tomato ripening printable

Get the tomato ripening printable here, and add it to your gardening journal. You can also print it out from the card below in a smaller size.

Continue to Content

Yield: 1 printable of tips for vine ripened tomatoes

Printable - Ripening Tomatoes on the Vine

Print

Print out the photo below and add it to your gardening journal. It gives 12 tips for ripening green tomatoes on the vine.

Active Time 5 minutes

Total Time 5 minutes

Difficulty easy

Estimated Cost $1

Materials

• Printer paper

Tools

• Computer
• Printer

Instructions

1. Load the paper into your printer.
2. Choose portrait layout and if possible, "fit to page" in your settings.
3. Print the tips for ripening tomatoes and add them to your gardening journal.

Notes

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