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Got a quick garden tip for you: picking tomatoes at the right moment can keep them from spoiling fast and make your plant bloom more, giving you more fruit.
Pretty cool, huh? But when exactly is that “right” time? Let’s dive in and find out.
The Perfect Picking Time
Most of us tend to think that tomatoes should be left on the vine until they’re totally ripe.
It’s what all those labels say, right? Like ketchup with “vine-ripened tomatoes” or “sun-ripened tomatoes.” But guess what? That’s just savvy marketing.
The best time to grab your tomatoes is actually at the breaker stage. So, what’s the breaker stage? Let me explain.
The Breaker Stage
Once your tomato plant flowers, it takes about 6–8 weeks for the fruit to ripen.
During the first part of that time, the tomato is just growing bigger and getting its seeds and flavors ready. When it’s full-sized, it’s called “green mature.”
Then, if it’s warm enough, the tomato starts making a hormone called ethylene, which helps it produce lycopene—the stuff that makes tomatoes red.
Cool fact: Tomatoes can keep making ethylene and lycopene even off the plant if they stay warm. Basically, a ripening tomato isn’t really part of the plant anymore once it starts making ethylene.
The stem hardens, cutting it off from the plant, and that’s what makes it easy to pick—this is your breaker stage.
Spotting the Breaker Stage
Even tomatoes that look kinda half-orange or still a bit green can be at the breaker stage.
Tomatoes ripen from the inside out, so they’re more ready than they look. As a general rule, if a tomato is about 50% ripe with a pinkish hue, it’s breaker stage time!
Here’s an illustration to help:
- Stage IV in the illustration is the breaker stage and the perfect picking time.
It can be a bit trickier if your tomatoes aren’t red, but after a few tries, you’ll get the hang of it.
Why Pick at the Breaker Stage?
If you leave tomatoes on the plant too long, it slows down new fruit production. Once a plant makes fruit, it thinks its job is done. But if you keep picking tomatoes at the breaker stage, it tells the plant to keep blooming and growing more tomatoes.
After You Pick: How to Ripen Your Tomatoes
Once you pick your breaker stage tomatoes, keep them warm to ripen fully.
You can put them on a sunny windowsill, your back porch, or even a cardboard box in the garage. Light isn’t needed for ripening, but warmth is key.
Set them up so they’re not touching each other and can get air all around. You can even layer them with newspaper. Check them often and eat or cook the ones with soft spots first.
And if it’s super hot outside (over 90°F), bring your breaker stage tomatoes inside. High temps can slow down the production of lycopene, so keeping them in a cooler place will help them ripen nicely.
Happy picking! 🌿🍅