Tomato Time

I planted LOTS of tomatoes this year in our garden with the hope that I would be able to avoid going to a you-pick farm to stock up. Unfortunately, though, we had such extreme heat and drought that my plants simply didn’t put out enough fruit. So off to a You-Pick it was.

I typically wait until the very end of the summer to go crazy picking tomatoes. I usually plan the excursion for Labor Day weekend so I can have the extra time to put process and store the fruit. However, because this summer has been be particularly chaotic, I went ahead and did my crazy-tomato-picking a few weeks ago. Off I went to Larriland Farm , one of our favorite local spots. Within 20 minutes I had picked 120 lbs of tomatoes. I also picked 30 lbs of beets, which I’ll write about later on. But today I show of my beautiful ‘maters.

This is what 120 lbs of tomatoes looks like. Not too bad, right?

I did pick more tomatoes than I intended,  but I did not go overboard.  Because there is no such thing as overboard when it comes to tomatoes, not when store bought tomatoes are so horrid. 

Rinsing and sorting tomatoes for sauce, canning whole, or slicing for drying.

As for where we’re going to stash all these ‘maters? We’ll find room for them under the bed or some other corner of our house.

Simmering pots.

I canned a lot of the tomatoes whole after boiling them and slipping their skins. I also put up a good amount of sauce. We ended up with 60+ quarts worth of tomatoes and/or tomato sauce. That will be good for a year, at least. I am a little nervous about space, though, because it is now looking like my garden-grown tomatoes are recovering from this summer’s heat and preparing to put out a serious wave of fruit….

Tomato sauce simmering with fresh herbs.

Other than canning whole/crushed and sauced tomatoes, I borrowed a friends dehydrator and made enough dried tomatoes to fill a gallon container. I think we’ll likely keep drying more, or popping whole tomatoes in the freezer for soups later on …. ‘cuz the growing season ain’t over yet. ; )

Tomatoes in Excalibur the Dehydrator.