Freezing Tomatoes

Well, after my first batch of tomatoes turned into a disaster (I blanched them for 5 minutes instead of 30 seconds--got them confused with green beans!), I have successfully frozen several baggies full. 

With the bigger tomatoes (beafsteak and roma), I blanch them for 30 seconds, plunge them in ice water for 30 seconds, peel them, dice them, scooping out seeds but not worrying too much about it, and then stick them in the freezer.  With the cherry tomatoes, I don't bother peeling.  They taste just fine in stews with the skin on. 

I love freezing the tomatoes because we use them in several recipes during the winter in place of canned tomatoes.  The homegrown tomatoes have such a nice, strong flavor--the difference is obvious.  I use them for beef stew and chilli.  My husband uses them for his delicious jambalaya.  They are perfect for any recipe that calls for canned tomatoes. 

The tomatoes were ripening en masse, but now things have slowed down a lot, since it's gotten so hot.  I hope/expect to have another big crop in the fall. 

What to Do When You Break Your Tomato Plant

Yes, I broke a branch off of one of my tomato plants today.  I was very sad.  It was one of my tasty 4th of July tomatoes, and it had a number of delicious looking green tomatoes on them.  As the saying goes, when life hands you a broken tomato branch with green tomatoes on it, cook them. 

My husband broiled them, and we had them as a side dish to our hotdogs.  I made up a delicious basil-mayo sauce to go with them.  I use this recipe for the tomatoes and the sauce. 

There are few things more tasty than grilled/broiled green tomatoes.  I love them.  I love fried green tomatoes too, but grilled tomatoes are a whole easier to cook, and they are definitely lower in carbs/calories than the friend version. 


For lunch today, I made whole wheat pasta with my favorite pesto sauce from a book called Pasta Pizza Presto.  It really is the best pesto I have tasted, and it is especially good when it is made from fresh basil from the garden.  It has been a huge hit anytime I made the recipe for a potluck.  My children love it.  I mixed the pasta with some pre-cooked frozen grilled chicken from target for protein.  My husband and I each cut up a small 4th of July tomato to mix with our pasta, and our younger son ate some Sun Golds. 

For dinner last night, I harvested green beans and carrots.  I just cooked them in butter and salt and pepper.  Can't get much better than that.  This year, I grew some baby-type carrots.  Wow--I can't believe how much better they tasted than store-bought.  I definitely plan to grow more carrots in the cool seasons from now on.  They are worth the extra watering. 

I love planning meals around my garden's harvest.  I tend to find cooking boring in general, but the fresh vegetables from the backyard inspire me, and I find it more enjoyable than I usually do.  I enjoy the vegetables even more if my husband is the one doing the cooking. 

Plant Review: Tomato Short and Sweet

I bought two Tomato Short and Sweet plants from my local garden center back in the early spring/late winter in order to jumpstart the tomato season.  I put them in an Earthbox, and they grew pretty well at first.  I kept them inside on cold nights and wheeled them back outside for warm days and nights.  I got my first tomatoes in early May.  They were not great.  They were grocery-store quality in flavor.  Also, they tasted bad once they got really ripe.  It was nice not to have to buy little containers of tomatoes from the grocery store, but the flavor really was a disappointment.  The plants died earlier than I would expect for a determinate variety.  I suspect a mineral deficiency and wish I had added dolomite when I planted.   I did add fertilizer.  I'm not sure the dolomite would have improved the flavor of the tomatoes.  I doubt it. 

Anyway, I liked the concept of growing tomatoes in a container early and will do that again, but next year I'll try a different variety.  I'm really happy that my other varieties of tomatoes are ripening--they are delicious and tangy and taste like what I'd expect out of a homegrown tomato!

Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

A couple of times this year, I've whipped up some stuffed cherry tomatoes.  I'll post a link to a couple of recipes, but one quick variation is this:  Mix goat cheese with basil, salt, and pepper, as much as you think you'll need for the amount of tomatoes that you want to make.  Spoon out the top and a little of the insides of each cherry tomato.  Put the goat cheese inside.  Easy and delicious.  

Recipes:

• Cherry Tomatoes Filled With Goat Cheese
• Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes Recipe

May tomatoes!

Here are my almost-ripe tomatoes:

They came from these plants, in my Earthboxes:

This has got to be the earlist I've harvested tomatoes before.  I bought them in late March at the local garden center.  They were already flowering a little.  I put them in the container on my front porch, which is the hottest place in my garden.  I wheeled them in on nights when there was danger of frost, and there were a couple of days where I just had to keep them inside all day.  I left them on my front ponch until about mid-April, when the afternoon sun got to be too much for them.  Then I wheeled them through the house into the back porch, where they get morning sun.  It's also nice back there because they get rain, so I have to water even less.

The tomatoes are a determinate variety called "Short 'n Sweet."  I haven't tasted them yet, but I'm optimistic that they'll be superior to our grocery store tomatoes.  I also have lots of larger indeterminate tomatoes growing out in my raised beds, but the first ones I planted (in late March) are just now starting to flower, so these will be all that we'll get for at least a month, I guess.

So happy that tomato season is back!  Depending on when our last frost is, we may have real homegrown tomatoes until Christmas! 

spring, spring, spring

The maple tree I planted in the front yard a few weeks ago is coming out of dormancy, as are the crabapple and dogwood in the back. I'm still waiting to see about the crape myrtles, but I did see some green on my blue rose of sharon bushes. I am so excited about those. I am going to plant shasta daisies around them, and I think they will look so beautiful in the summertime.

When my other saplings came a few weeks ago, I received 2 free forsythias from the Arbor Day Foundation. I wasn't sure I wanted them though and didn't get around to planting them. However, the forsythias around town have been so lovely this week that I regretted that. I had shoved them in the pantry, and I went to look at them, and they were coming out of dormancy. Any shrub that hardy deserves a place in my yard. So, I planted them. Hopefully, they'll be all right and produce beautiful yellow flowers next spring.

No frost forecast yet, but it is supposed to get down to 35 on Tuesday night. I'm going to investigate my options for protecting my tomatoes. This article has a lot of good ideas: Protecting Plants from Frost. I'm hoping the forecast changes by then. If it doesn't, I will try covering them with newspaper. My tomato seedlings are very small.

Speaking of that, I saw at Lowe's many large, lovely plants for planting in the garden, including large specimens of Early Girl, which I have growing. They were cheap. It made me wonder why I bothered starting my own seeds... Except that I enjoy it.

My tomato towers finally came, and I have them installed. I had bought bamboo stakes since I was convinced the towers wouldn't be here in time, so I'll have to find another use for them (shouldn't be hard).

I feel like my asparagus should be here by now. I will have to check on it.

One of my houseplants, my "aluminum plant" got very "leggy" and ugly in the low light situation that my parlor palm and spider plant do not mind. It also prefers its soil to stay moist, whereas they prefer a wet-dry cycle. I moved it upstairs to the office, where it could get more light, and I could water it more, but it is just ugly. So, I am going to root a cutting of it and then compost the poor thing. I think the dry winter air upset it. This will be my first attempt at rooting a cutting.

So much waiting! Waiting for asparagus crowns, waiting for spring vegetables to grow, waiting for the weather to warm to put in later plantings. I'm already planning for fall, winter, and spring as well. Thinking of naturalizing daffodils in the front lawn since my crocuses croaked/bulbs were likely eaten by squirrels. (Here's a link I liked on Naturalizing Daffodils.)

Tomatoes out in the garden

Maybe I'm crazy, but I am pretty sure we're not even going to get close to having another frost. My tomato seedlings looked unhappy, and I decided it wouldn't hurt to put one of each kind of tomato out in the garden. If they die, I have a back-up for each. If the weather stays nice, I think they'll be much better off.

I may not plant the back-up of all of them, if the ones currently out make it, especially the hybrids. I marked each with a little wooden plant tag. I guess I'm going to go to Lowes and get some stakes since my tomato towers STILL AREN'T here. I would cancel the order, but they were a good price, and I will just use them next year.

The tomatoes I planted:

Early Girl (hybrid)
Glory (hybrid)
Container Choice (hybrid, bush)
Brandywine (heirloom)
Pineapple (heirloom)
Green Zebra (heirloom)

The cherries:
Jenny (non-hybrid, yellow)
Ladybug (hybrid, red)
Snowberry (heirloom, white)

Depending on the forecast, I may plant my peppers out within the next couple of weeks, at least one of each type.

I think next year, I will probably start an early variety this early but save my mid and late season varieties to start 3-4 weeks before the last frost.