Gardening here this year has been something out of ordinary. We’ve been super, super wet. According to the news we could have no rain between now and the end of the year and still exceed our annual rainfall average by a couple of inches.
We’re getting a little bit - cherry tomatoes, squash, beans, cukes, bok choi, kale, etc, but nowhere near the hoards we usually harvest. Often we’re taking a lot of excess to church with us on Sundays to give away, and that’s after freezing it and giving some to neighbors, etc. This year I’m still buying produce at the grocery store. I’ve frozen absolutely nothing. When we get something we just eat it. The chickens have had more than we’ve had (due to rot, presumably from the rain).
Dry them. Cut in half, place cut side up on a sheet pan**, salt lightly. Place in 200 degree for ~4 hours (longer if it’s humid). Or you can use a dehydrator if you own one. (I don’t…the oven method works great. You can do several sheet pans at a time.) Tomatoes will be slightly tacky, but they’ll have shrunken/shriveled considerably. Store in the refrigerator and use whenever you need sun-dried tomatoes.
**I cover my sheet pans with a sheet of parchment so the tomatoes won’t stick to them.
Cook them into tomato or pasta sauce. Take a roasting pan (glass or ceramic work best) and pile your grape tomatoes in the pan. Roast them at 450 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until the skins have all split open and juice is released. Remove pan from oven and let cool. Put tomatoes & juice through a food mill or crush them in a. blender or food processor and press through medium mesh strainer to remove most of the seeds.
You can use the tomato puree as is, freeze for later use, or simmer the puree over low heat on the stove to reduce the amount of moisture before storing or freezing.
Alternatively, you can make tomato leather out of the puree. Line a sheet pan with foil and spray with cooking oil. Spread out puree evenly all over the surface, dry in a 200 degree oven until the puree is dark and has completely dried out. When pan has cooled, peel tomatoes leather off the foil and store it in the refrigerator or freezer until ready to use. Rehydrate in hot water to make tomato sauce.
I used to make tomato leather all the time to take on backpacking trips where weight is at a premium. Then use the reconstituted sauce in pasta dishes. In a pinch, you can rehydrate the tomato leather in cold water–it just takes longer.
Probably could try this by just slicing them in half: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0a/69/d5/0a69d56bd58dba0cef23138ba8eed9c4.jpg
Slow roasted “sun dried” tomatoes - easy and downright yummy! Cover large cookie sheet w/foil, set cooling rack in top. Slice Roma’s/plum tomatoes lengthwise in 2-3 slices each tomato, place on rack. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt and sugar. Bake 250 degrees for 3-4 hours. Cool and re-drizzle w/olive oil. Refrigerate. Amazing!
I’m picking LOTS of tomatoes. Lots of the sugar gold little ones which I love and many bigger ones that I have eaten on toast, on a plate, and made lots of marinara!
I made the recipe^^^ this afternoon–except I fully carmelized the tomatoes by roasting instead of broiling-- and tried it on my baked potato at dinner.
Pretty tasty, but I think it would be even better if you add some grated parmesan cheese to the butter. It’s what I plan to do next time.
This is my 2nd year gardening in raised beds. I started gardening because I wanted fresh tomatoes but found out I like gardening in general. I have 7 tomato plants, working on a 2nd harvest now. I have Goliath, Arkansas Traveler, Tiny Tim, and a few that I can’t remember the names of. I also had cakes, red onion, butternut squash, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cilantro, bell pepper and jalapeño. I will never plant cauliflower or brussels again. I had to pull them due to the bugs. No more dukes because I am the only one that eats them. I did get volunteer red potatoes and romas. Plan to expand next year.
Birds had been getting tomatoes and my plastic owl didn’t scare anything so I just added bird tape(?) yesterday. I am out of town until Sunday (dropping D18 of at Furman) so I hope it woks.
Mid September. Still picking tomatoes though they have slowed. My zinnias grown for cutting are AMAZING! Picked a couple onions this morning too. I expect the tomatoes will last another week or two and then I’ll pull them. It’s like the sun is not intense enough to produce good ripening.
I still have tomatoes and hot peppers. I made raspberry habanero jam, peach habanero jam, yellow tomato, peach, and ghost pepper jam, and tomato sauce this weekend. I canned the three jams (water bath) and froze the tomato sauce. H likes to cook, so he helped me. I still have more ghost peppers and jalapenos that I am going to use for hot sauce. We spent both Fri and Sat doing all the work. By Sat afternoon we decided to go out to dinner and see a movie.
My tomatoes are done but I’m still getting lots of peppers. Hatch and lipstick with some gypsy peppers. I have them in big pots and I’m going to try to overwinter them.
I have frozen bunches of peppers and onions. Tomatoes did so so this year. I roasted my grape tomatoes- so tasty! I still have one zucchini plant producing and personally, I am rather tired of zucchini. I have some frozen but I might do more. I agree with abasket- my zinnias did amazing this year. I made a note to grow more.
A neighbor of mine took a little plot of grass in her side yard - maybe 4 ft x 4 ft? - that had grubs and decided to enrich the soil and throw zinnia seeds there. It has become a yearly planting and it is beautiful! Such a statement! She has a couple varieties in the plot and it is FULL of blooms. Their sidewalk is walked by many families to and from the neighborhood school - people stop and take photos with the zinnias as the backdrop all the time!
I feel like zinnias are a current modern choice of an old fashioned flower.
So glad this thread popped up again as I have a ton of grape tomatoes and can only eat so many salads. Tonight I’m going to make that roasted grape tomato sauce recipe that is linked a few posts above. Thanks for sharing that!
For anyone with an Instant Pot (or you could probably do it in a crockpot) and an over abundance of tomatoes, this recipe is quite good and VERY easy. I made it several times this late summer and have frozen lots.
I’m just not a farmer. Tried container tomatoes this year on the deck. We had a batch of fried greens. I had a couple of little tomato sandwiches and a few as sides but by and large the squirrels got a lot of them. It’s just easier for me to go to the farmers market.
@Bromfield2 I use roasted cherry tomatoes to make pasta sauce all the time–but I put them through a food mill to strain out most of the seeds.
Bell peppers were a success–the chiles not so much this year. I got maybe 5 chiles in total this year and will need to hit the Sprouts supermaket since they’re selling 40 lb sacks of Hatch chile and have an open flame roaster set up in the parking lot. 'Tis chile roasting season. The smell of roast chile is the smell of fall.
I got a bumper crop of carrots this year. More than I know what to do with.
Dumped the grow sacks and got about 8 -10 lbs of baby potatoes.
Still getting cherry and regular tomatoes, and bell peppers. The tomatoes seem to have gotten a second wind and have started blooming like crazy again. I’ll probably be getting tomatoes until Halloween.
Cukes, wax beans and eggplants have all more or less stopped producing after a bad hailstorm about 10 days ago that shredded the plants. I pulled the zucchini in early August due to a massive squash bug infestation. I’m going to give up on trying to grow squash. The bugs always get them.
Planted lettuce, Brussel sprouts and cauliflower in the fall garden.
Tomatoes are doing better- cherry tomatoes, better boys and some italian ones grown from seeds from our contractor. Got a few green peppers and the basil did well but is now dead.
