It is time to talk about what we should be doing to hasten the harvest of our tomatoes as we start to see the end of the season ahead.  I know, we still have a couple of months to go before first frost, but there are things we can be doing NOW to insure that we will have as many ripe tomatoes as humanly possible.  I think I have said much of this before, but since now is the time to be doing it, I feel it bears repeating.

• First of all, if your tomatoes are trained up on our round or square tomato cages, chances are the cage is chock FULL of plant material.  It is very important to thin out some of the extra foliage, exposing the green tomatoes to the light.  Find short branches that are nothing but foliage and cut it off at the base.  Don’t cut them all off, mind you, but I’d start with 1/3 to 1/2 of them, and see how it looks.  It sounds severe, but the plant will respond well to it.  You are bringing light and air to the inside of the plant, which will encourage the ripening process.  The further into fall it gets, the more foliage I cut off of my vines.  I am usually harvesting ripe tomatoes through all of October, and by the time frost arrives, I don’t have any fruit left to ripen.
• Now that you hopefully have green fruit on the vine, you can start cutting back on water.  Just let them get very dry before you give them a drink.  I have even heard some folks say that they don’t water their tomatoes at all after the fourth of July.  This will give a richer flavor to your ripe fruit.
• This next tip you will want to do about the first part of September, but not quite yet.   The indeterminate tomatoes are essentially long vines, and will continue to flower and produce fruit until frost.  However, the energy it takes to continue flowering takes away from the energy it needs to ripen fruit.  SO…. in early September you will want to prune back your vines, cutting off all of the flowering tips.  I usually cut mine back to the first juncture where there is green fruit.  This will cut off flower production and encourage the ripening of the green fruit.
• Don’t forget to provide support for branches heavy with fruit; use soft twine to gently tie them up to the cages so that they don’t break under the weight.
• Clean up and dispose of (in the garbage, not the compost bin) any diseased leaves.

Follow these simple end of season tricks and you will help your tomatoes give you an abundant fall harvest!