Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - Do seeds continue to mature in tomatoes picked at first blush?

**carolyn137** · September 10, 2018

There are about 4 stages of ripeness. First just at he blossom end,then 1/3 of the way up to the stem end,etc.

Florida commercial tomato growers pick their tomatoes at half blush and then put them in chambers where they introduce ethylene oxide gas,which looks like they are ripe,but anyone who buys those fruits in a store knows darn well they taste horrible. And I'm talking mainly about winter tomatoes sent up north where we as mostly so called amateur growers cannot grow much of anything. The same situation exists for tomatoes grown in Mexico.

I thought I'd Google a bit to see if the various stages of ripeness were discussed and was glad to find the following.

https://www.google.com/search?q=toma...&bih=815&dpr=1

Carolyn,who also has picked unripe tomatoes from time to time,especially if a hard frost was expected and either wrapped them in newspaper or put them in a paper bag with a few slices of apple .Crag L had requested the seeds from PCGRIN for a variety, we both were doing that many years ago,he couldn't germinate anything, sent some seeds up to me and I was able to get 2 plants up, sent one to Craig, I kept the other one and seeds I saved were from a variety that Livingston descibed in their catalog,maybe from about 1900,so all seeds out there now are from my initially saved seeds.

September 10, 2018	#8
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	There are about 4 stages of ripeness. First just at he blossom end,then 1/3 of the way up to the stem end,etc. Florida commercial tomato growers pick their tomatoes at half blush and then put them in chambers where they introduce ethylene oxide gas,which looks like they are ripe,but anyone who buys those fruits in a store knows darn well they taste horrible. And I'm talking mainly about winter tomatoes sent up north where we as mostly so called amateur growers cannot grow much of anything. The same situation exists for tomatoes grown in Mexico. I thought I'd Google a bit to see if the various stages of ripeness were discussed and was glad to find the following. https://www.google.com/search?q=toma...&bih=815&dpr=1 Carolyn,who also has picked unripe tomatoes from time to time,especially if a hard frost was expected and either wrapped them in newspaper or put them in a paper bag with a few slices of apple .Crag L had requested the seeds from PCGRIN for a variety, we both were doing that many years ago,he couldn't germinate anything, sent some seeds up to me and I was able to get 2 plants up, sent one to Craig, I kept the other one and seeds I saved were from a variety that Livingston descibed in their catalog,maybe from about 1900,so all seeds out there now are from my initially saved seeds. __________________ Carolyn