Fresh Tomatoes on November 30

[mattie g]

Thought it would be worthwhile mentioning a big win for me from my summer garden...

A couple days ago, I made a tomato sauce for dinner at the request of my wife. I followed her recipe and it turned out wonderfully. But I credit much of that to the the home-grown tomatoes I used to make it, rather than my own cooking techniques. Not only did I use a couple pounds of home-grown cored, seeded, and frozen tomatoes, but I also utilized about a pound of tomatoes that I pulled off the vine before our first frost about a month ago. They've been inside ripening this whole time, and while I did lose quite a few of those green tomatoes to some rotting and the like (mostly brought on by slug damage from when they were still on the vine), there were still quite a few good ones left to use for that sauce.

I still have about a pound in the fridge waiting to be used, as well as a little under a pound that are currently ripening. It's absolutely amazing to me that I can have fresh home-grown tomatoes in early December up here in my neck of the woods!

[ElizabethB]

Good job! I had an abundance of tomatoes this year and made a chunky sauce with lots of onions and garlic and lots of fresh basil added after the pot was taken off of the heat. There is no comparing commercial sauces with home made! You have made me hungry. I canned half a dozen pints of sauce. Gonna crack one open for dinner tonight.

YUMM!

[applestar]

THIS is what it's all about!
Sounds so yummy!
I'd like to know the variety too. I'm all over the place trying to decide which varieties to grow next season, but I definitely want to plant a couple of "so called long keepers" for -near frost, pick green and still get ripe fruits to eat well after frost- harvest. But they have to taste great.

I also love pulling out a bag of freshly picked and processed, vine ripened tomatoes from the freezer in the middle of the winter for a reminder of taste of summer.

[mattie g]

Marlin and apple...

The ones that are ripening now are some smaller Brandywines and Valencias (5-7 oz. or so), and San Marzanos. Nothing flashy or special at all - I think I just got them off the vine at that perfect moment when they were mature enough to continue ripening, but only after they were able to sit for some time on the shelf. Like I said, I had probably 5x as many that deteriorated after I brought them inside, mostly due to what I now realize was late-season slug damage.

It really is amazing, though. I have five or six tomatoes left that are getting near ripe, and I also have a few in the fridge that I'll be throwing into sauce or salsa over the next week or so.

Despite the incredible heat and lack of rain, I had a my most successful tomato season to date in my small garden. I got my plants in the ground pretty early and they started off strong, then came back to life to give me late-season tomatoes after a mid-summer hiatus because of the heat. I had aphids, slugs, and some blight, but the plants powered through it all to deliver an amazing harvest this year that, with frozen tomatoes, will last us well into the winter!

[mattie g]

Good job! I had an abundance of tomatoes this year and made a chunky sauce with lots of onions and garlic and lots of fresh basil added after the pot was taken off of the heat. There is no comparing commercial sauces with home made! You have made me hungry. I canned half a dozen pints of sauce. Gonna crack one open for dinner tonight.

YUMM!

Sounds familiar! Plenty of onion, garlic, mushrooms, and basil, along with some rosemary, with ground turkey topping it all off. So good!

[rainbowgardener]

You are a little south of me. I used all the last of my picked green ripened indoors tomatoes before Thanksgiving. But still I ate home grown tomatoes from mid-June to mid-Nov, not too bad for Ohio.

Now we are eating tomato sauce I made and canned and things like veggie chili and lasagna I made and froze, all with home grown tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. So still eating from the garden a little.

[mattie g]

You are a little south of me. I used all the last of my picked green ripened indoors tomatoes before Thanksgiving. But still I ate home grown tomatoes from mid-June to mid-Nov, not too bad for Ohio.

Now we are eating tomato sauce I made and canned and things like veggie chili and lasagna I made and froze, all with home grown tomatoes, bell peppers, etc. So still eating from the garden a little.

Sounds about right, rainbow. We're probably a couple weeks "warmer" than you, so it makes perfect sense.

We should do OK on cooking tomatoes over the next few months, as I have five or six gallon bags full of cored and seeded tomatoes in the freezer right now. But once those go, I'll be jonesing for some fresh stuff!

[filmnet]

I just freeze some big fruit in a bag, take 1 out 2-3 hrs it is water and ready. I cut it open and get seeds out and top out under water then with tomato water to the pot. The tomato water now is using for food I hear?