Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My tomatoes refuse to ripen, I've got some yellow grape, and some russian blacks, and neither want to ripen, they grow to full size but then stall and stay green.

I remember somebody mentioning burying half a banana in the growbed for some sort of beneficial gas ?

do some test like ph, NH3 etc.. so we can get a better pespective of your problem

All my levels are fine, decent levels of Nitrates, but 0 on nitrites and ammonia. PH is good too.

Patience I think.... Once tomatoes fill out they can take a fair while to ripen up.

We had loads of green cherry toms that had to be taken off the plants at the end of the season.
Put them in open trays covered with brown paper in the shed or any relatively dark, well ventilated place and they`ll usually ripen in a few days.

I've been quite patient EB, but the Russian's are starting to form cracks in the fruit. so will be toast before ripe

Cracks in the fruit, especially around the stem connection, is symptomatic of large variations in temperate and/or humidity... like the summer we seem to be having....

Tomatoes will also not ripen on the plant as well when the temperature gets over 25 degrees.... they actually ripen better when cooler.

You may have seen this when the fruits actually appear to have ripen/coloured up overnight....

I'd pick a few, rather than lose them, and put them in a darken place in a paper bag or covered by paper and see if they'll ripen.... bet they do...

Oh ... and the black russians are a late ripening variety anyway

i had a similar problem with my beef tomatoes. the sun burnt them before they would ripen.
you'll find under some conditions stuff won't ripen on the vine, just pick them when they get to a good size.

Righto! Into a paper bag they go... will need to buy a bottle of vodka to get a paper bag though ... oh well!

I like your style

I felt I was waiting forever for mine to ripen. One went pink then they all seemed to get a move on. Once they begin to change colour it only takes 2-3 days. Pick a few, sure, but I reckon u will be fine.
I have Grosse Lisse and we picked the first one 80 days after seedling transplant.

My dad told me when i was a kid to take all to leaves off under the grape to get the tomatoes to ripen. I've read on another thread here that it is what is done in commercial facilities too.
Might as well PM Jim who is the NFT tomato expert too. He's in the members system topic, under Jim's greenhouse or something like that.

You might put some of that red plastic under the plants that reflect far red light onto the plant to tell them to ripen up.

Like this

Where are your seeds from? I had a wild cherry tomato grow from the compost i made and spread in my dirt garden. I topped it out at 6 ft and it had about 6 kg of friut, but it never ripened. It ended up rotting on the vine. I was told that some of the Frankenfruitcommercially grown does not produce viable seeds for the second generation.

I also agree that to strip all but a few leaves off will promote ripening

it's not just genetically modified plants that don't produce good seed. many naturally verigated varities don't produce viable seed. I watched a thing on seed collecting the other night it was very interesting. not sure i'd go in for it myself, seed packs cost $2.50, i can't see the point in sacrifcing the best plants in a crop for seed when the value of the plant is more then new seed....