Tomatoes for 2023

[digitS']

For years, I was delighted to have slicers. Some were a guarantee altho the choices for me to have a supply were limited. Nice, Big, round -- I had 'em!

Lately, I've been asking my self, why? No, it's not just because that recent 6 days out of 7 when the plants couldn't dry out and ripe fruit split. Last year, I began chopping tomatoes for sandwiches. Can you "slice" a 12oz tomato and put the whole thing in a sandwich? Of course, not. 10 ounce? 8 ounce? However, you can chop a 4 ounce tomato and put the whole thing with additions between slices of bread. Easier to chew ....

Okay, sitting down with a plate of slices of a beefsteak, cucumber chips, cheese, crackers, spices, maybe some dip, tall cold drink - it's a happy place.

Steve

 

[Zeedman]

I roast and freeze my tomatoes and peppers. Then when I have enough I can them into salsa. I don't have enough garlic so going to Costco today for some. Tomorrow will be canning day.

Mary

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.

 

[flowerbug]

if the flavor is there i don't mind having bigger tomatoes for processing because it does go a lot quicker to not have to core and peel a bunch of smaller tomatoes. that's about what i'm seeing out there now. a lot of smaller tomatoes. no idea if they will be worth processing or not yet. some may get spots on them with the weather we've been having and the plants lacking much in the way of foliage. we'll see...

the big improvement this year was that we only planted Big Beef tomatoes so we did not have very many "brains" like we had last year. it took so much extra time for processing those last year that i was happy to give away the last few hundred lbs of them.

this year we may have a few hundred lbs left but i don't know if they will be edible or worth processing. the few i tried from the other day were bland and i don't have too much hope for them getting much more flavor in them if the leaves are mostly gone and we don't have too much sun out... we'll see what happens through the weekend...

 

[Zeedman]

"Elfin", my grape tomato, has gone into overdrive. Picking them has become the most strenuous task in the gardens (other than weeding). And this is only two plants!!!

"Elfin" is determinate, and develops huge flower clusters on the ends of its branches (those clusters often intertwine). Ironically, the foliage is sparse... I think the plants actually use the hundreds of green tomatoes as leaves. I'm glad the Grandson & many friends like these; they are like mini-Romas, meaty with little juice. They have become my 'jelly beans'.

 

[SPedigrees]

this year we may have a few hundred lbs left but i don't know if they will be edible or worth processing. the few i tried from the other day were bland and i don't have too much hope for them getting much more flavor in them

Can you add (hot) peppers, garlic. onions to them to spice up the sauce that you're making?

 

[R2elk]

if the flavor is there i don't mind having bigger tomatoes for processing because it does go a lot quicker to not have to core and peel a bunch of smaller tomatoes. that's about what i'm seeing out there now. a lot of smaller tomatoes. no idea if they will be worth processing or not yet. some may get spots on them with the weather we've been having and the plants lacking much in the way of foliage. we'll see...

the big improvement this year was that we only planted Big Beef tomatoes so we did not have very many "brains" like we had last year. it took so much extra time for processing those last year that i was happy to give away the last few hundred lbs of them.

this year we may have a few hundred lbs left but i don't know if they will be edible or worth processing. the few i tried from the other day were bland and i don't have too much hope for them getting much more flavor in them if the leaves are mostly gone and we don't have too much sun out... we'll see what happens through the weekend...

Try azomite to bring the full flavor to all vegetables.

 

[Phaedra]

Just found something funny - that's why I have so many volunteer tomatoes this year (from the homemade compost)

 

[flowerbug]

Can you add (hot) peppers, garlic. onions to them to spice up the sauce that you're making?

normally i'd say no because the whole idea of putting up tomato chunks is to put those other things in there when we use the chunks to make other dishes. so i'm mainly concerned with the tomatoes having enough acid and tomato flavor and if they lack flavor i might as well be canning paper shreddings and water. so i dunno what i will be doing. next time i pick i'll do a flavor sample and if they're blah i'll stop picking and call it done. we do have perhaps one more bucket of larger tomatoes and if they are red instead of pink they'll be ok for flavor. its the ones that turn pink and then get spots of rot on them that aren't worth the effort.

also the lack of sunshine in recent days is not going to help much. today and tomorrow are at least supposed to get some sunshine... so maybe Monday picking will have more flavor for some of them. rain again in the forecast for the coming week starting Tues.

 

[digitS']

something funny

Generally, I am not very concerned about vegetable seeds in the compost. My thinking is that there are a good deal of nutrients in the seeds that can benefit future plants regardless of what is the new, intended crop.

Never have I succeeded in having "hot enuf" composting to kill all seeds. This was true when large piles of alfalfa and cow manure would steam like volcanoes through the Winter off the side of my garden. Alfalfa would show up in my garden. It's especially true now that I either use composting-in-place or in the pits below soil surface – heat moves into the soil.

I weed the seedlings and they are composted. Volunteers in the big veggie garden are simply there as a result of missed or damaged fruit or intentionally left flowering stalks. BTW – the volunteer tomato in the squash patch that I have been cheering on appears to be a Porter from its plum shape. Porter was the only plum grown in 2022. Still a question if they will have time to ripen. BTW#2 – we had a few volunteer lettuce plants in this year's garden. First time, ever! But, I don't usually allow lettuce to stay and bloom. They did just fine .

Steve

 

[Branching Out]

One of the new tomatoes that I am growing is Tangello from Sunshine Farm Seeds, https://sunshinefarm.net/?product_cat=&s=tangello&post_type=product
So far I really like it for its cheery orange colour, and the fact that it holds well on the vine without going mushy.

A couple of other interesting varieties are Dark Galaxy (this one is also preferred by discerning rodents apparently) and Lebanese Mountain.