Gardening expert shares one thing people can do to get tomatoes to ripen earlier

For gardeners, there's nothing quite like the joy and cost-saving of growing your own vegetables. Yet, the wait for home-grown produce to reach the dinner plate can test one's patience.

James Prigioni from has a tip for those eager to speed up their tomato harvest – and it's all about what you remove, not add.

James emphasises the importance of recognising whether your tomatoes are Determinate or Indeterminate before you start snipping away.

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He explained: "Pruning has some major benefits, especially when it comes to ripening. Tomatoes that are pruned tend to produce fruit 2 weeks earlier than ones that aren't pruned."

Determinate tomatoes, also known as bush tomatoes, grow to a set height and yield a single batch of fruit before ceasing growth, whereas Indeterminate varieties keep on growing and fruiting until the cold snap hits.

Among the well-known Indeterminate tomato types are Beefsteak, Big Boy, Brandywine, Sungold, and Sweet Million, while their Determinate counterparts include Roma, Celebrity, and San Marzano Nano.

On an Indeterminate tomato plant, James showcased his pruning method: "We want to prune our plants to a single stem."

James clarifies: "The reason we do this, is because when we prune our plants, we are redirecting the energy from growing leaves and new shoots over to the production of fruit and the ripening of that fruit.

"It's like we choose to make the plant focus on fruit instead of on the leaves because that's what we want."

If you neglect to prune your tomatoes, James cautions, you'll be left with a lush, leafy plant that doesn't yield much fruit: "In my opinion, I'd rather have a tomato trellis loaded with fruit," he says.

Letting your tomato plants grow into a bush can lead to issues beyond a lack of fruit, James points out: "When it comes to indeterminate tomatoes, being bushy like this isn't ideal because it makes it much more susceptible to disease issues and the tomatoes ripen slower."

James, who hails from the US, notes that 2025 has been particularly challenging for early blight, so he's opted for the cherry bomb variety, which he touts as having "bomb-proof resistance and disease resistance to early blight."

Over here in the UK, some favoured blight-resistant varieties include Crimson Crush, Fantasio and Sungold.

James advises that, regardless of the variety you select, a pruned plant will benefit from improved airflow and light penetration, which aids in warding off diseases. This, in turn, will help your plants ripen tomatoes quicker.