It may be straightforward enough to pick a tomato when it is ripe. Just wait for it to turn red. However, it is important to also know that your tomatoes need to be picked regardless of whether you need them or plan to use them.
When a tomato plant produces fruit it does so for only one reason: to reproduce. The fruit of the tomato is produced to feed an protect the seed to its maturity.
If a tomato plant could talk it would wake up each morning and say, "My mission is to make more plants. Therefore I am going to flower and fruit in an effort to do so."
Picking the vegetables off of ‘fruit' bearing plants is essential in maximizing the crop. Peppers, peas, beans, eggplant and virtually all other fruit bearing plants will slow or stop the production of flowers if you are not harvesting regularly.
So, picking your crop as it ripens is important for two reasons.
It encourages the plant to produce more and it provides you with health and nutrition."
Mark
