The Fate of the Tomatoes

Well, I've been too busy gardening and other stuff to blog much, but I wanted to be sure to record what happened to my tomatoes.

I gave some away, and I canned some.

This is the first time I've canned tomatoes - and the first time I've canned anything by myself.  I hope my canned tomatoes don't kill us. :-/

I used all three types of tomato I grew this year - Ilini Gold, Hungarian Italian Paste, and Lollipop.  Yes, the Lollipops are cherry tomatoes, and yeah, I peeled them. o.O After squirting tomato goo across the kitchen several times (much to my accidental amusement :P), I finally figured out a technique for peeling cherry tomatoes that kind of works.  You take a knife and slit the skin near where the stem was, then hold it inside the target container and gently squeeze.  The meat will squirt out and you're left holding the skin.  That description does not do justice to how messy it is. :P  I already warned my husband that he's likely to find tomato seeds in the kitchen - anywhere.  I won't be surprised if some dry up and pop off the ceiling. ;)

Handling the tomatoes themselves was interesting.  I held one warm, slimy, red, fist-sized Hungarian Italian paste in my hand and thought, "Hmm. I'll bet this is is kind of what a heart feels like, except blessedly the tomato isn't pulsing, because that would be crazy."

Now while I'm waiting  35 minutes for my three pints to boil and annihilate any bacteria that might dare to be in those jars, a word about the tomato varieties.

The tomatoes finally started ripening in mid-July.  I thought they would never ripen!  I thought the Ilini Gold plants were going to die.  They look pretty scraggly right now, but I did pick a couple of pounds of tomatoes off of them, so yay.  The fruit are nearly baseball-sized, ripen evenly, and don't have all the issues that the Hungarian Italian Pastes are suffering.

The Hungarian Italian Paste tomatoes aren't making me very happy.  They seem to start rotting before they finish ripening, which is a big bummer.  I've picked off way too many bright red yet half rotten tomatoes. Yuck. I actually haven't harvested very many of these successfully. 

The Lollipop tomatoes, on the other hand, are incredibly productive.  I can't tell a difference between the true Lollipops and the ones I planted from seeds I saved last year. Well, good. ^_^  The Lollipops remain undefeated as My Favorite Tomato. 

Here's a picture of the three tomato varieties accompanied by cucumbers and my weird throwback zucchini.


I was considering growing nothing but varieties of cherry tomatoes next year since they have heartier plants and are more productive, but after this adventure peeling the little dudes for canning ... hmm.  I might reconsider.

And back to the canning process.  I peeled tomatoes for over an hour and ended up with three pints of product. *sigh*  I thought I would have 4 pints, but I had some timing issues with the various pots of boiling stuff and ended up boiling the tomatoes way longer than they should've been, so I think I effectively reduced them. *sigh*  Well, that means the flavor should be more concentrated, and these are some gourmet freaking jars of canned tomatoes!

... and I just wiped another seed off of my cheek.  Maybe I'd better go look in the mirror ... Eh, they'll all wash off in the shower. :P

And here we are - my tri-tomato canned tomatoes. :)

I'm still waiting to hear two more pops ... :-/

(maybe i should turn the radio down :P )