Tomatoes for 2023

[Ladyreneer]

That sounds like a great idea for the tomato crop, given my late peppers.

But if my peppers don't ripen (which is admittedly unlikely) I can just make a lot of roasted tomatillo salsa instead. I'm guessing there are at least a couple gallons of tomatillos from all of the volunteers I let grow. Hopefully I can make enough of both to give to family & friends... and of course, the cook gets to sample all the batch left overs.

I adore Tomatillo Salsa and i just made and enjoyed some 2 days ago. Excellent!

 

[digitS']

DW is the salsa maker. I grew tomatillos one year. She was as clueless as to what to do with them as I was. (Yes, there were some volunteers the following year.)

@ninnymary roasts tomatoes & peppers before freezing. Looking at @heirloomgal 's peppers sent me off to find something about that striped pepper, beyond its good looks .

DW freezes only cherries and peels them as they thaw. They go into the toaster oven and the other ingredients rotate their turns in there (garlic, cilantro etc.). Everything ends up in the blender. Salsa.

Fall & Winter are her salsa seasons. I look anxiously at the cilantro plants now out of the corn shade, with the corn stalks cut. They look okay but tomatoes are frozen and waiting. Winter — cilantro from the produce aisle. Too bad coriander seeds taste so different but then again, the seeds have their own qualities.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

DW is the salsa maker. I grew tomatillos one year. She was as clueless as to what to do with them as I was. (Yes, there were some volunteers the following year.)

@ninnymary roasts tomatoes & peppers before freezing. Looking at @heirloomgal 's peppers sent me off to find something about that striped pepper, beyond its good looks .

DW freezes only cherries and peels them as they thaw. They go into the toaster oven and the other ingredients rotate their turns in there (garlic, cilantro etc.). Everything ends up in the blender. Salsa.

Fall & Winter are her salsa seasons. I look anxiously at the cilantro plants now out of the corn shade, with the corn stalks cut. They look okay but tomatoes are frozen and waiting. Winter — cilantro from the produce aisle. Too bad coriander seeds taste so different but then again, the seeds have their own qualities.

Steve

Steve, the only thing in my salsa are tomatoes, garlic, jalapenos, chipotle peppers, and salt, I actually broil the tomatoes and peppers and puree then freeze until I have enough to can. The garlic I saute for a couple minutes then add to the tomatoes and puree. The chipotle peppers add the smokiness that I love.

Mary

 

[heirloomgal]

DW is the salsa maker. I grew tomatillos one year. She was as clueless as to what to do with them as I was. (Yes, there were some volunteers the following year.)

@ninnymary roasts tomatoes & peppers before freezing. Looking at @heirloomgal 's peppers sent me off to find something about that striped pepper, beyond its good looks .

DW freezes only cherries and peels them as they thaw. They go into the toaster oven and the other ingredients rotate their turns in there (garlic, cilantro etc.). Everything ends up in the blender. Salsa.

Fall & Winter are her salsa seasons. I look anxiously at the cilantro plants now out of the corn shade, with the corn stalks cut. They look okay but tomatoes are frozen and waiting. Winter — cilantro from the produce aisle. Too bad coriander seeds taste so different but then again, the seeds have their own qualities.

Steve

@digitS' you have me considering for the first time freezing all my leftover cherry tomatoes. I have a lot still out there on the vines with great taste intact, not needed for seed saving or salads anymore really....I wonder if the seeds in them might be a little 'extra' though? Seems a waste to abandon these wee fruits if they can be used from frozen.

 

[flowerbug]

Mom picked three more buckets of tomatoes this afternoon. i was too busy getting the onions taken care of so she went out and got some of them picked. mosquitoes are out now for sure with all these recent rains... she said there is more out there but she will get them tomorrow morning. so i may be doing more canning tomorrow evening. i'm a bit skeptical that they will be worth canning but i will give them a try before deciding to do a lot of them.

 

[Branching Out]

We are stilling looking at plants loaded with green tomatoes. However we have a couple of weeks of pleasant weather ahead, so hopefully they will have a chance to start changing colour. I must say that it is kind of nice to have a break from having to harvest them. It was becoming almost too much of a good thing.

 

[flowerbug]

yes, i was ready to be done with them after the last few rounds of canning. looks like i'll have four or five buckets worth waiting for this evening and tomorrow. since it is going to be rainy that is ok with me as at least them i'm doing something useful instead of napping and paperwork (which i'm always glad to ignore - some of these papers have needed to be filed for about 15 years so a few more isn't going to hurt them).

 

[flowerbug]

i didn't know that Mom had left the buckets of tomatoes out in the garden last night and we had a heavy fog/dewfall last night so i went out this morning to get them moved into the garage at least.

it being morning and me not really being awake yet i picked up two buckets and didn't notice the third was propped against them so it dumped them all out. they were full of dew and the top of the tomato garden is somewhat sandy so now they are all sanded over. they were clean in the bucket... oh well, good thing i can rinse them off when getting ready to process them, which i have to do anyways, but it's just one of those things that i can do in the morning that will make me laugh as it is so dumb of me...

 

[Phaedra]

I just found that one volunteer tomatoes are ripening, and it's yellow cherry tomato I grew last year.

 

[ducks4you]

I have 3 tomato types fermenting right now. Not Positive about the warm reds--I think they are Rutgers, bc they are mid sized--got Copia tomatoes fermenting, those are the yellow with red, and I Think the cherry red are Rose de Verne.
Good thing I took shots of the packages!!
I grew and harvested Indigo Purple, but nobody really cared for them. I Might save seeds from them, end of season.
My best new gardening tool are the 50+ large yogurt containers that I have cleaned out.
For fermenting I slashed 3 big cuts with a couple pulled back in the clear lids so that the fermenting could take place without explosions, AND I can look through the lids.
I used different spoons to tell what was what.
Right now I have 39 heirloom tomato plants, the last of which were transplanted last saturday in August. Only 2 tomatoes, so far, but I suspect I will get a harvest from them end of the month.