Homegrown tomato just off the vine.

So, I wondered, when was I supposed to pluck the tomatoes from the vine? I read that they should be allowed to ripen on the vine, and so I left them alone, expecting them to turn to a nice, deep red/orange before I picked them.

From pale green, they began to blush salmon pink, then turned a slightly deeper pink. They still had tinges of green on them, so I figured they needed to remain on the vine for a bit longer.

Nuh uh.

When they’re ripe enough, they’ll drop off themselves – and on the ground is where I found a few of them before I got wiser. Now when I see them mostly deep orange, I give a tiny tug to see if the fruit will detach itself. If it pops off with no resistance, I take it; if it doesn’t, I wait half a day before trying again. Sometimes the fruit still has tinges of green, which give me the impression that it’s not ready yet. But the tug test works best.

So how do these large cherry tomatoes taste? Well, like normal tomatoes, thankfully! They’re great in salads or eaten alone, and now that I know they taste good, I can’t wait for the other plants to mature as well. My next experiment with the plants will be to grow different types of basil around them, because tomatoes and basil are supposed to be great companion plants. Now for more sweet basil seeds to sprout…

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