12-13-2005, 08:46 AM
You can bag the tomatoes after you pick them. We had some back in Illinois that fell off during a storm, most of them ended up turning red and tasted good. It may even take weeks. The reason to pick them earlyis that it is hard to grow big tomatoes here. Bugs bite them as they ripen and then they turn to mush. We have had the same success with cherry tomatoes up in Mountain View. They are like vines and just keep going, they live for years we've heard. Ours is growing over the pot it's in and has started to spread out on the ground.