4th Saturday in a row doing nothing but canning various tomatoe related recipes. I'm feeling like a 5th would burn me out. Need to go fishing. 😆
Thinking I might ask if someone wants to get all my maters next weekend so I can take a break.
Today I hit the mark of 95 pints of salsa made in a month. Also made spaghetti sauce and a bunch of stewed for my wife. I'm DONE!
by fisharoundnfindout
24 Comments
We got 7 cherry tomatoes total our first year this year so no😂 couldn’t even do anything but eat them straight
Yeah I’ve really let my garden go at this point. Ripens on the vine will wait I’ve got plenty
how many plants and varieties do tou have going?
Nope, but a week of rain killed me but still a very good year.
Ooh! You have Aunt Ruby’s German Green!!!
If you feel overwhelmed, you might get a chest freezer. If the goal of all that amazing fruit is making tomato sauce, freezing then thawing is another way to concentrate the sauce, reducing the time needed to cook it down.
Also, freezing whole open-pollinated fruit (generally in ziplock bags by color) serves as a seed library, for next year. Melt then ferment, if you didn’t have time to ferment in the autumn.
I wish you many tomato sandwiches, blt’s, and home grown salsas and sauces.
No
Nope
Not this year. So hot and dry they haven’t produced much, and the ones that are growing have been super small.
Except the pineapple tomatoes. Those are kicking ass.
Red gold right there baby. 99 bottles of sauce on the wall, 99 bottles of sauce .. you take one down, pass it around .. (sorry, started day dreaming there while salivating)
Yes. I keep at it but I’m ready to be done for the season. We have so much more to go but I’m grateful and proud of our progress this year. In total (so far) we’ve processed over 30 pounds of tomatoes and we have about another 10 pounds we gotta do something with by tomorrow
Wish I was!! Had HUGE plans of sauce and salsa, but not enough nutrients in soil so I’m now making compost and going to buy a truck of manure
My Romas keep dropping off the plant before they’re fully ripe lol, but my tomatoes are coming in at weird intervals that I can’t get enough to can right away lol.
I have 15 plants and tomatoes can fuck right off until next spring
Offer them up locally and take a break! I gave a weekend’s worth away 2 weeks ago so I didn’t have them around while we were out of town.
A lot of libraries do a “grow a row” program where you can donate fresh produce, or you could put them on your Facebook, someone you know would do something with them.
If you have a food mill, I got through 50 pounds in a day by myself turning them into “thick sauce”. No peeling since they go through the food mill, no other ingredients to prep except acid and salt for the jars. Easy base ingredient to use later, very flexible.
No. Especially not heirlooms!!
For sure. How many fresh tomatoes can anyone eat in a day? Becomes an almost a full time job distributing, processing, and doing all the plant maintenance to keep it all from collapse. There is probably the right amount of tomatoes to grow if the goal is simply to enjoy some fresh tomatoes in season for oneself, close family and maybe a few friends, possibly set aside a few tomatoes for processing. Is eight plants or twelve or twenty the right amount, I’m still working it all out.
If it is a business that’s different, but home/friends use only growers likely will be burdened by growing more than thirty. forty, fifty or tomato plants unless they want to make finding homes for extra tomatoes a side gig or enjoy having to be in the kitchen almost constantly processing all the extra tomatoes.
There’s no way my husband will pass up fishing to process tomatoes 2 weekends in a row lol. The deer ate most of ours right when we were finally seeing results. They even ate the okra and squash.. looks like you have a great crop!
Never! Salsa, sauce, and soup those ‘maters. Idk for certain but if there were dehydrated and added to a good quality oil, maybe some herbs, would that be homemade sun dried tomatoes?
Never! Had one of the best desserts last night!
https://preview.redd.it/7nhkbmkbppkd1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=710752f189d18058e25243a1921364c296f5a2c0
My bush tomatoes are collapsing with fruit but last year was such a terrible year (no ripe fruit until 3rd week of September) I am eating them with every meal… tomorrow I will make tomato chutney and tomato sauce and can as much as possible.
Not yet, but I’m willing to try.
Yes every year, I don’t like tomatoes but I was raised in a culture that grows them, and I enjoy doing it. Hubby eats them in his daily salads as they ripen in the summer.
I’ve done ok my last two seasons but nowhere like this. I can only hope I’ll have this problem one day!
However, every time I plant out tomatoes I wonder why I started so many dang seeds. I spent the last two evenings planting the fall crop out and am not even halfway done.
Yum. Make soup and freeze it. So good grilled cheese sandwiches when it gets colder.