Tomatoes. When is enough enough?

I have a single self seeder. I thought it deserved a chance.It's doing disgustingly well but I didn't intend to grow tomatoes this year. Haven't finished last year's sauce yet.
I've been doing the right things and it keeps on growing. At what stage do you start pinching off the flower buds on an outdoor plant? At what stage do you decide they're not going to have time to do anything?
I have a heritage jar of green tomato chutney at least five years old. I don't want to make any more.

 

Trade them with a neighbour. The art of barter is not quite dead.

 

Tricky, if you can predict how warm Autumn will be that would help.
The conventional advice is no more than 5 trusses, but if it turns cool and wet they may not all ripen. Last year I was still picking into November

 

I have one outdoor plant which is tucked agai nst a fence near the house for protection. I've just taken more flowers off the stems as they have no chance here of producing fruit and ripening enough before weather is too cold long term. I think there's only about 2 or 3 trusses on it.
It has two stems, as it seemed to fork very early and I just left it, as it was surplus to requirements anyway.
I bring excess fruits inside in early Oct, sometimes earlier. Location and climate are what makes the big difference with ripening.

 

I just topped and removed all the new flower trusses from both inside and out. My allotment doesn't get any sun from late September so there's no point in letting them go on after that anyway. My out door ones have done well for Scotland, about 12 plants and I've been picking them for almost a month, with a lot more to come, assuming they can withstand blight well enough

 

I don't pinch tops or remove side shoots, but just eat what I get. Optimisation of the crops is important obviously if it's a livelyhood or if you have plans for preserving produce, but for a leisure gardener like me less fuss is the way to go.

One year I tried to do a bit of a gourmet preserve of my surplus Sweet Olives. They were slow roasted for hours in the oven with extra virgin olive oil, garlic, oregano and basil, and then blended to produce a velvety sauce tasting just like ... ketchup!

Ever since, my main ambition is to grow just what I want to eat fresh.