When to Harvest Tomatoes: Ripeness and Roma Timing
Pick tomatoes at full variety color for best flavor, or harvest mature-green and breaker-stage fruit before splitting, pests, or frost.
Published · Reviewed by ThriveThyme
tomato harvest roma
When to Harvest Tomatoes
Harvest tomatoes when they have reached their full ripe color for the variety and feel slightly soft when you squeeze gently. They should twist off the vine with little pressure. You can also pick at the breaker stage, when the fruit just starts to show color, and finish them indoors. That avoids splitting, hornworms, and early fall chill.
Days to harvest are counted from transplant, not from seed. Most slicing tomatoes take 70 to 85 days. Roma (plum) tomatoes are often 70 to 80 days. Beefsteak types can take 80 to 90 days. See the roma tomato spacing guide and the tomato plant page.
Ripeness Signs
- Full color for the variety: red, pink, yellow, purple, or striped as listed on the packet.
- Slight give at the shoulder. Rock-hard fruit needs more time.
- Glossy skin. Dull, pale fruit is early.
- Easy release from the stem with a twist.
- Roma tomatoes for sauce can be picked fully colored and still firm. They wrinkle if left too long.
Breaker-stage tomatoes that have started to color ripen reliably indoors. Mature-green fruit can also ripen: it is full sized, its green color has begun to lighten, and a pale or white star may show at the blossom end. Small, uniformly dark-green immature fruit is less likely to ripen with good flavor.
Roma Tomatoes Days to Harvest
Roma and other paste tomatoes are usually ready 70 to 80 days after you set transplants outside. Fruit is ripe when it is a deep, even red (or the variety color) and still firm. For sauce, pick at peak color and process soon. One plant typically yields a heavy flush over 3 to 5 weeks, not all at once.
Space roma plants about 18 to 24 inches apart so fruit dries quickly after rain and fewer tomatoes split. Details are on the roma tomato spacing guide.
Cool Nights and Late Season
Cool weather slows ripening. Before a hard frost, pick breaker-stage and mature-green fruit and finish it indoors at room temperature, out of direct sun. Set tomatoes in a single layer where you can inspect them and remove any that decay. Do not refrigerate unripe tomatoes because temperatures below about 50 F can cause chilling injury and uneven ripening.
Next Steps
Pick colored fruit two to three times a week. If vines are winding down, leave the last tomatoes to ripen indoors and free the bed for garlic or fall lettuce.