My organic home-grown tomatoes
It's the very end of tomato season, and I am savoring the very last tastes of my favorite crop. A couple of weeks ago, nighttime temperatures in my area turned low enough that I knew it was the end of tomato season. Tomatoes ripen between temperatures of 60-85 degrees. " They will not ripen when the nighttime temperature is below 50 and the daytime temperature below 60 for 14 days or more." Source.

Instead of watching the last tomatoes on the vine slowly rot away, I was determined to pick them all and have them ripen inside. I spent a day picking all of the green tomatoes, pulling out the rest of the tomato plants, and tossing them in the compost.
Tomatoes do not need sunlight to ripen. They do need heat. Place your green tomatoes inside a paper bag or cardboard box in a place that is warm. I have mine sitting in a cardboard box in my living room. Another factor that helps the ripening process is a gas called ethylene. Ethylene is naturally released by ripening fruits and veggies like tomatoes, bananas, and apples. I placed some red tomatoes inside of the cardboard box along with all of the green ones in order to provide needed ethylene. If you don't have any red tomatoes, a ripening banana or apple will work as well. In order to capture and contain the ethylene, I placed newspaper over all of the tomatoes.

Enjoy your bounty! I have been making an amazing tomato sauce/soup with my tomatoes. I roast some garlic cloves, add them to a large pot with olive oil, add my unskinned tomatoes, mash the tomatoes with a potato masher, and then let them simmer for 2 hours. Sometimes I add truffle oil and basil. If you want a more creamy soup, you can puree it all at the end. If some of your tomatoes never ripen, you can make some delicious fried green tomatoes!