cherry tomatoes

It's getting a lot cooler and I was starting to think it's time to cut the tomato plants down, most of the fruit just green. Then I read on another garden blog (forget whose) that you can hasten the ripening by removing the blossoms and cutting back the roots (shovel in the ground around the plant). I have never tried trimming roots like that before, but I did pinch off all the emerging blossoms on my tomato plants. Also trimmed off some decaying leaves, inspected for caterpillars and cut back some top growth that I guessed wouldn't support new tomatoes anyway.

What a response! My cherry tomatoes did start to ripen suddenly, and what's more, these tomatoes are a lot bigger than all the ones I picked earlier in the season. Is it because the plant felt it had to throw all its resources into the fruit? Or just because we've had more rain lately (some tomatoes split their sides with the influx of water).