A lot of times we focus on the transplant and the harvest, but what happens in between is probably the most important part of the lifecycle. It is also that long, grueling portion where you have absolutely nothing to show for all of your hard work, and you are asking yourself why you even bothered when you can pick up tomatoes for a fraction of the time and cost at the grocery store 🤣. Every time I see one of those meme's about spending some crazy amount of money on gardening and getting like 1 tomato, I laugh and then die a little on the inside. I've also calculated out how many lbs of tomatoes I could buy at the store with the money I spend each year, and it's a lot. That said, a lot of the costs are up front, and as long as you plan on continuing to garden each year will get less and less expensive (as long as you don't keep upgrading your gear).
If you've read some of my other blog posts, you probably know that we have quite a few resident deer and this year they seem to be a lot bigger assholes - I mean a lot more confident - and so I've had to put up some netting around the tomatoes to deter them. This is actually the first year I've had issues with them eating unripe tomatoes, which is unique and must be related to the fact I decided to start a blog about gardening. I've also invested in a few more motion sensing sprinklers and get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I hear them go off at night and see a deer trotting away.
Tomato Plant Size at 70 Days:
At 70 days you may be asking yourself why you have no ripe fruit even though the days to maturity on your plant label says 65. Unfortunately, the days to maturity estimates really don't work for the Maritime PacNW, and the estimates assume much more conducive growing conditions for tomatoes than we have here with our cool springs and summer nights. A better estimate I've found is to increase the days to maturity by 25% to set more realistic expectations. Which means that tomato with 65 days to maturity that you planted May 15th will probably produce its first ripe fruit around the the first week of August. That may feel like a disappointingly long time, but on a positive note, we have a very long growing season and you should continue to have fresh tomatoes from the vine through mid-October.
In my own garden, the 'compact' tomatoes I have in 10 gallon containers have now filled out their cages and have reached the top. You wouldn't know this based on the chaos of the picture, but I actually pruned back all of the tomatoes in the garden a week ago and removed a ton of foliage. In about 2 weeks I will start topping off the couple indeterminates I have in containers as there is already plenty of fruit and flowers on them and I don't really want them flopping over. Topping off tomatoes redirects their energy into maturing and ripening the existing fruit as opposed to putting out more leaves, flowers, and extending already leggy stems.
The Aunt Ruby's German Green is the largest tomato plant I have this year, and is usually in the top 2-3 in terms of size (not fruit). It is the closest one in the raised bed and has cleared the ~7ft cage. I would maybe rate this variety as a moderate producer, but this year it has a pretty heavy yield and there are already 15-20 full size beefsteaks that should ripen in the next couple of weeks.
In this final picture of the plants in cages, we have the Hillbilly, Black Krim, German Gold, Sungold, and finally Ananas Noire. The really tall stems in the center belong to the Sungold which is incredibly prolific and will take up any and all space it finds. As a cherry tomato it doesn't need heavy caging, but does need very tall or wide support. I've been tying it to the cage for Ananas Noire and trying to restrict it from completely taking over.
Tomato Fruit at 70 Days:
At 70 days you should also be starting to see cherry + grape tomatoes beginning to ripen and have some unripe, full-size slicer and beefsteak tomatoes. Very early slicer varieties like Early Girl, Stupice, or Fourth of July may also be ripening at this time. I always recommend growing a blend of early, mid, and late varieties so that you can start seeing the fruits of your labor sooner rather than later.
In my garden I can see full-size tomatoes on all the beefsteaks except for Pineapple, which was a bit stunted from a few very aggressive Bok Choy plants early in the season. So far the highest yielding beefsteaks and slicers this year I have are: White Tomesol, Paul Robeson, Black Krim, and Aunt Ruby's German Green.
So how long does it actually take for the fruit to ripen once it is full-size? There isn't really an exact science to it, as it depends on the weather, variety, determinate vs indeterminate, fruit sun exposure, and the yield of the plant overall. Generally speaking, it takes about 2-3 weeks once the fruit is at full-size to ripen on the vine. Because of my deer/bird/squirrel problem, I usually harvest the fruit as soon as I see any color at all and let it finish ripening in our unfinished basement.
My guess is that by this time next week I should have a couple of slicer or beefsteaks that have ripened and will post a blog update once they are ready - assuming my deer defenses hold.
Hope your tomatoes are coming along happy and healthy! My next blog post will focus on tomato pests and problems, and when you should(n't) panic.
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