I'm Susan Mulvihill and welcome back to my vegetable garden yep I'm back in the tomato patch because I'm really working at getting my green tomatoes to ripen so far you can see they have really improved over the last few weeks this is my third video on this topic because there there really is a trick to getting your Tomatoes to ripen now the first video I shot was in early August and in that video I talked about trimming off the top foot or so of growth just to start raining in your Tomatoes now that did make a big difference on mine the second video I did about the third week of August and in that one I really got crazy because I trimmed off all sorts of leaves that were laying over the tomatoes I trimmed off all kinds of branches because there's no point in having new growth or flowers because nothing is going to make it on those little flowers by the end of the season so this is my third video and at this point I'm happy with how things are looking but there are more things I can do to really get them to ripen the first thing that I've done is I've turned the water off to this bed I know that sounds crazy but it will make a huge difference and you'll get even more tomatoes ripening the next thing you can do if you're really desperate is you can take a shovel and cut down in a half circle about a foot away or ten inches away from the main stem of the plant and cut down through some of the roots another thing you can do is you can pull upward on the stem just to get a few roots to break you don't want to completely pull the plant up but that will make a difference to your goal is to stress the plants to get these things to ripen the last thing you can do if you really run out of time is to pick all of your timid put them in a dark area between sheets of newspaper and they will ripen really well but the important thing is to remember to keep an eye on them because occasionally you will get some rotting and that will spread very quickly so you want to make sure you keep an eye on them I hope these videos are a help to you and I hope you get to make a whole lot of sauce and ketchup in salsa happy gardening