PNW: Tomato Tuesday 2012

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:My dad, while Mom was out of state caring for a relative, was faced with lots of tomatoes ripening up; but he had no idea how to deal with them. So he wiped them off, packed them in freezer bags and tossed them into the freezer to await She Who Cans. Turned out to be an inadvertent genius move: Mom could remove a sack of tomatoes from the freezer, let them BEGIN to defrost; grab hold of a tomato and squeeze it; out would pop the center ready to be canned, made into soup, or added to a stew. Of course, you have to have extra freezer space, but it's a great solution to an immediate problem. Nonna

Have to remember this, as I am likely to have LOTS of toms ripe when I get back home from vacation!
GG

Nonna.PapaVino your dad is a genius!!!

recently i viewed some video where she froze the tomato just like Nonna.PapaVino dad did with out blanching and when she got enough she let them thaw a bit and the peeling comes right off! no mess

we always have blanched ours before peeling....and we tend to loose a lot of juice and some pulp by doing it that way.....they are hot and messy.....in this video only the skin came off real easy and no mess.....

think we may give this a try....we have about 12lbs of tom's sitting on the counter to ripen right now.....

hugs
rose

Yep, my dad, or as grandkids called him: PapaDon, was very intelligent, but also very funny. For instance, my sister, who was driving, started to take the OFF ramp up to the expressway. PapaDon's instant remark, "Oh, not that way. Party's over and everyone's coming back." Nonna

wow what a great fall we are having for our tomatoes!...we never thought we would be getting so many ripe tomatoes this year

here are the plants we have left that are still going :drunken:

5 Heirloom super Itilian paste



heirloom Jubilee (there are 2 plants in that pot)



2nd heirloom Jubilee (2 plants in one pot)



our son's sweetie...oh so yummy!



moved into the green house.....2 suckers from our super itilian paste and 1 from what looks like a jubilee....all three plants are doing well and have green fruit on them!...two plants are to the left and the other one is straight back under the venting flap...the very tip of it is touching the vent screen......



we have been enjoying fresh spaghettie sauce and busy canning tomato and pizza sauce and salsa....we have canned 15 pints so far :drunken:



these guys are almost ready to can...been picking the super itilian paste when they get some yellow/orange/red color change to them and then letting them ripe inside the house....hoping to give the mother plants more energy to keep going on the ripening the big yellow ones in the paper bag are the jubilees



how is everyone else doing?....not sure how many more tomato Tuesdays we have left.....

hugs
rose

I keep missing Tuesday, but figure I'm long overdue posting in here so I'll give a quick update today. I got some ripe Brandywines. They all split pretty badly, but I was able to get a couple of perfect, nice, thick slices to make my husband a BLT from one of them. (He said it was good). Diced the rest up and have been topping my salads off with them all week. Have a few more big ones out there - one ready to pick today and the other two I think I may pick also and see if they'll ripen on the counter, since I'm lazy about watching the nighttime temps.

Anyway, I think they taste better than the Jet Star hybrid I grew last year, but I'm not sure I'll bother with them next year. Only so much growing room and I want to focus on paste tomatoes to try to do some canning next year.

gwen....glad to hear you were able to get some ripe Brandywines to try we felt the same way about them too...they were good....but only produce one or two large tomato but still not enough to can or anything....it was fun growing them and tasting them but we too want to grow for canning....we still will try differnt varieties for fun and tasting at the same time finding varieties that work well here in the PNW.....

so far our Heirlom Super Itilian Paste wins.....the plant stayed healthy....is prodcuing a ton of fruit for canning sauces......the taste ok.....on the bland side.....is not for a sandwich doesnt have that zing i like for a sandwich....so we are still looking for that.....

we will also grow our Heirloom jubilee's again.....perfect medium to large fruit....the flavor is good....on the bland side so not a lot of acid....half the plants stayed very healthy....so it worth a try again next year......i like how they turned out for our salsa....the fruit was either yellow or orange ....so it looks real pretty is salsa

and for taste and fun.....OP sweeties.....sweet/tany goodness of a cherry tomato......produced a ton of fruit and stayed very healthy thru the season......

hugs
rose.....who would love to hear what varieties others found that worked well and didnt work well in the PNW

Okay, Rose, here goes for best tomatoes here on Yankton Mountain, St. Helens, OR: #1: Black Sea Man (flavor, color, generous fruit set); Federle (okay sauce flavor, generous and HUGE fruit (some were 7" long) with few seeds, perfect for tomato sauce); Dagma's Perfection (mamouth fruits--one was 1-1/2 lb. by itself--, lovely gold color, with blush of pink, and sweet (perfect for gingered tomato marmalade). Caveat: all three take a longer season than I'd like here in Western Oregon. However, having planted them in greenhouse early, and set them out with protection, we've had a very good season, and lots of canned tomatoes and sauce in pantry. And
a surprise: Indigo Rose, touted as having much more anti-oxident compounds, saladette size, shocking deep purple--almost black--skin color, normal red interior, nice flavor, huge fruit set, cans up well. Fun to see folks' look when you give them a "black" tomato. (Oh, loser was pink Brandywine (Suddeth's Strain): stingy fruit set, mediocre flavor.)

I have been making salsa, tomato sauce and dehydrating tomatoes the past few weeks and I still have tomatoes in the garden.
My pressure canner failed a few days ago (I ordered a new seal and I am hoping that fixes it) and cannot make any spaghetti sauce without it.
My grandson moved out last week and evidently I cannot eat them fast enough myself. I would hate to have to feed them to the chickens. I will make more sauce if I must and use the waterbath method but would prefer the canner working!
I have been approx. 85 days without rain and the rainy season is starting in a few days. Rain and cool temps mean possible blight and split tomatoes. Does anyone out there use split tomatoes or do you throw them away?

happycamper, I bring in any and all with even a hint of color, and let them color up/ripen inside. Then I can them like you are already doing. The green tomatoes left outside when it rains suffer less than those almost ripe. Having said that, there are great recipes out there for green tomatoes: green tomato mincemeat, green tomato chutney, salsa verde, fried green tomatoes, and more here: http://www.tarladalal.com/recipes-using-green-tomatoes-1300 and here: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/09/dinner-tonight-green-tomato-curry-with-potatoes-and-garlic-recipe.html
Enjoy! Nonna

Hi Happy Camper
I used split tomatoes for sauces etc. I had 51 plants this year, a combination of 4 heirlooms, and a few volunteers from last year.
The one I was most thrilled about was the Alicante, it is an heirloom from England, but as I read more, it is actually from Spain. They grew very large, very plentifully as well AND they tasted great. This is my first year of saving seeds and so I before I know for sure I am doing it well enough, I am going to try again next year with the seeds I have obtained from a couple of this years Alicante.


I grew also Zapotec, which is a mexican heirloom and I think might have thrived better in a semi protected area, but they were very unique in appearance and very tasty.. I might try these next year in a semi protected area.
Brandywines, as usual did incredible, got tons of them and the flavour is always delicious.
Narm was a paste like tomato I grew mostly in greenhouse and added most of them to sauces with the other varietals. They were not as robust, but the ones in greenhouse were not in general though.

We have about 60 pints of roasted tomato sauces as well as about 10 of frozen. I dried tomato slices, and gave away about the equivalent of 8 wine boxes full of tomatoes and have a cold room full of them now.
So glad to have learned about roasted tomato sauce here.
But I would have to say that I could not say more about Alicante. What a great tomato.
Hardy, beautiful. perfect.
next year when I am sure of myself I will offer TONS of the seeds for trade etc
Janet who is now trying to figure out what to do with all of them carrots.....

Nonna, Thank you for the links, I have saved them and I will take your suggestion and bring the tomatoes inside. I have never tried any type of green tomato recipe before. I usually just compost them at the end of the season and it always seems wasteful but the chickens won't eat them green. I will experiment with them this year. I saw one I will try specifically for the green grapes that were new to me this year and they are really full of flavor.
GWN, Thank you for the info on split tomatoes. Wow, 51 plants, that is double what I grew, I am impressed. I really enjoyed the picture, looks like several of us are into preserving our harvest!

we too have been bringing in any tom's from our Super Itilian Paste tomatoes when we see a hint of orange color and ripening them inside.....the other tom's from our Jubilee, Sweetie and Marglobe we have been allowing them to ripen on the plant....

we are down to just those tom's now....all of the other plants got sick and we pulled them.....

seems like we are getting about 6-12 pounds of these Heirloom Super Itilian paste tomatoes each week now.....here is what we pulled today and you can see the box of red ones that were pulled last week that are ready to be used....there is also five Heirloom Jubilees and a ripe Heirloom Marglobe.....



this is what we have been picking the last couple of days from our son's sweetie cherry and a few yellow cherry volunteer saved from seed of last year.....



here is what the plants are looking like

Son's Sweetie cherry



Daughters Heirloom Marglobe


Heirloom Jubilee....before we picked the ripe ones



2nd Heirloom Jubilee before picking the ripe



1st group of Heirloom Super Itilian Paste



2nd group of Heirloom Super Itilain Paste



hugs
rose

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:Okay, Rose, here goes for best tomatoes here on Yankton Mountain, St. Helens, OR: #1: Black Sea Man (flavor, color, generous fruit set); Federle (okay sauce flavor, generous and HUGE fruit (some were 7" long) with few seeds, perfect for tomato sauce); Dagma's Perfection (mamouth fruits--one was 1-1/2 lb. by itself--, lovely gold color, with blush of pink, and sweet (perfect for gingered tomato marmalade). Caveat: all three take a longer season than I'd like here in Western Oregon. However, having planted them in greenhouse early, and set them out with protection, we've had a very good season, and lots of canned tomatoes and sauce in pantry. And
a surprise: Indigo Rose, touted as having much more anti-oxident compounds, saladette size, shocking deep purple--almost black--skin color, normal red interior, nice flavor, huge fruit set, cans up well. Fun to see folks' look when you give them a "black" tomato. (Oh, loser was pink Brandywine (Suddeth's Strain): stingy fruit set, mediocre flavor.)

nonna the Indigo Rose sounds so neat..... and the Black Sea Man would love to see pics of both of them if you have them glad to hear you were able to put up some sauce!!

hugs
rose

happycamper wrote:I have been making salsa, tomato sauce and dehydrating tomatoes the past few weeks and I still have tomatoes in the garden.
My pressure canner failed a few days ago (I ordered a new seal and I am hoping that fixes it) and cannot make any spaghetti sauce without it.
My grandson moved out last week and evidently I cannot eat them fast enough myself. I would hate to have to feed them to the chickens. I will make more sauce if I must and use the waterbath method but would prefer the canner working!
I have been approx. 85 days without rain and the rainy season is starting in a few days. Rain and cool temps mean possible blight and split tomatoes. Does anyone out there use split tomatoes or do you throw them away?

Happycamper......glad to hear you are putting up salsa and sauce too sorry to hear about your canner.....hope all that was wrong was it needed a new seal!.......the weather has been crazy!....i can not believe it hasnt rained yet.....we too have been needing to water our gardens in Oct ....as regards to split toms.....we eat them unless it looks like the crack part seal has broke all the way thru and bug or flies could have gotten into it.....we also use the craced ones for saving seeds.....

hugs
rose

GWN wrote:Hi Happy Camper
I used split tomatoes for sauces etc. I had 51 plants this year, a combination of 4 heirlooms, and a few volunteers from last year.
The one I was most thrilled about was the Alicante, it is an heirloom from England, but as I read more, it is actually from Spain. They grew very large, very plentifully as well AND they tasted great. This is my first year of saving seeds and so I before I know for sure I am doing it well enough, I am going to try again next year with the seeds I have obtained from a couple of this years Alicante.


I grew also Zapotec, which is a mexican heirloom and I think might have thrived better in a semi protected area, but they were very unique in appearance and very tasty.. I might try these next year in a semi protected area.
Brandywines, as usual did incredible, got tons of them and the flavour is always delicious.
Narm was a paste like tomato I grew mostly in greenhouse and added most of them to sauces with the other varietals. They were not as robust, but the ones in greenhouse were not in general though.

We have about 60 pints of roasted tomato sauces as well as about 10 of frozen. I dried tomato slices, and gave away about the equivalent of 8 wine boxes full of tomatoes and have a cold room full of them now.
So glad to have learned about roasted tomato sauce here.
But I would have to say that I could not say more about Alicante. What a great tomato.
Hardy, beautiful. perfect.
next year when I am sure of myself I will offer TONS of the seeds for trade etc
Janet who is now trying to figure out what to do with all of them carrots.....

51 plants wow

love the look of your canned goods!!....looks like you have been busy!....we just started pressure canning this year....and i love it!....love the water bath too.....its really nice that we can use our pressure canner as a wather bath also....makes it so much easier in canning....the pressure canner as been sitting out for a few weeks now.....being used!

we too want to be able to trade seeds as well....we are saving lots of seeds this year....but for the tomatoes we didnt cover the bloom so we can not say for sure its pure.....next year we will do better!

hugs
rose

Rose, I'd love to post pictures, but have been unable to do so. Followed all the recommendations on forum, but no go...the computer just goes to sleep. Frustrating, but maybe when we get another 'puter I'll be able to. Nonna

we still have a few tomato plants ...trying to ripen...but they are looking really sad....i think its time to let them go.....we are very happy with how well these guys did....going to grow them again next year.....and try a few new ones too





these guys are almost ready to pick....they are a orange/yellow color jubilee....



this one blew over



hugs
rose

Rose, I left my mater plants out in the garden too. I noticed with the Roma's that although they continued to ripen, they tasted like mush. Too much water (rain) I think. I should have picked the two Brandywines that were on the vine once the rain started to see if they'd ripen inside, because sure enough they've split wide open. I'm waiting for a dry spell to go clean them up, along with the Roma's and the rest of the garden. (It was dry yesterday, but I was babysitting for a neighbor and didn't get to take advantage of the weather.)

GWEN......sorry to hear about your Brandywines

i agree with you on the rain.....the last batch we brought in to ripen inside the house turned out bad....their skins felt like leather and most of them started to mold so we are done with the romas....the jubilee's we are still hoping for....they are up against the house and pretty protected from the rain....i even had to give them a drink yesterday

next year we are still going to grow romas for sauce and also try a few others for taste.....for sure going to grow our son's sweetie cherry tomatos.....but....we are not going to have 20 or so plants.....even though we are trying to grow tom's to make into sauce.....we have found it takes a TON of maters to get enough for storage of sauce.....we did it this year with the romas....but we are not going to grow a lot of other types.......just not worth the space.....to only get one or two fruits

hugs
rose

I'm sad I didn't get enough Roma's to try canning. Hard waiting another whole year. Wanting to learn some of the skills my mom and grandma have and used often, but were not taught to me.

Next year I'll try Roma's again. And then maybe one cherry tom for my salads and I'll leave it at that.