Checking in on your tomatoes!

[Marian Worley]

Very soon we will begin the summer harvesting of tomatoes and I cannot wait. Wilth the cool wet summer in the south the tomatoes took a while to make, and I have experienced a bit of blossom drop and lack of blossoms, but the tips I have received, calcium, fish emulsions, have helped and I have a nice crop coming. How are yours coming?

[Adrian Fox]

Thanks to everyone for the advice on sun drying tomatoes. So far it's gone great, although I blinked with one batch and found they had all gone crispy. Lots of sunshine this summer, and I guess the little glass greenhouse gets a bit too hot when it's completely closed. Just doing another batch this afternoon, and the sun has come out again. Yipeee!

[Marian Worley]

Crispy tomatoes, Adrian, are still delicious and useful. You can rehydrate any overdried product at the food production stage by a slight simmer in water, stock, whatever the recipe calls for. I would take some of your crispy tomatoes over a store bough fat one ANY DAY!
We are having blight issues in Tennessee due to our rainy and cooler than normal summer so I am going to seek and destroy the plants more than normal, but If you can leave the plants out, they will produce a fall crop that will ripen indoors or yield a bumper crop of green ones for frying, green tomato relish or chutney or jam. Lovely with winter roasted meats , cheeses, and breads.

[Adrian Fox]

For fall/autumn tomato production, the main plants are losing a lot of lower leaves, going brown and papery. I'm not sure if it's red spider mite or just mineral deficiencies but the fruit is OK. I doubt these plants will make it into the autumn, so I've rooted some cuttings from sideshoots of the best plants to get some new more vigorous plants to put in new planting holes in a few weeks' time. I hope this will give me some fruit later into the autumn. Anyone tried this method? Most of the outdoor plants are still fine, the problems are with plants in the polytunnel.

[Marian Worley]

So much blight here due to weather, I am going to harvest what I have, which will be plenty, and then pull and burn my plants. Then spend some timwe treating the soil. Good luck to you.

[T.R. Faronii-Butler]

So much blight here in NY that I will not have much in the way of tomatoes to show for this years efforts. I am a container gardener and the hailstorm destroyed all but one of my containers. That one was hanging upside down. First time I've tried that!

[Johanna Greenberg]

Here in Salt Lake the tomato crop has come on late, but all of the varieties I planted this year produced. I have attached a photo of the varieties. Top row: Brandywine, San Marzano, Green Zebra, Scotia
Bottom row: Black Russian, Zapotec, Roma, Yellow Pear, Borghese.

Also, I have been drying my Borghese tomatoes in the oven on convection and then I place them in zip-lock bags and freeze. We did this last year and they kept really nicely and rehydrated well with a nice concentrated tomato paste flavor.

[Marian Worley]

These are soooo beautiful and I love the oven dreid tomatoes. How do you do yours? I am going to try them/

[Johanna Greenberg]

I cut mine in half and set on a cooling rack on a sheet pan and then place in oven at 225 F for about 4 hours. I imagine the drying time might vary a bit depending on your climate's humidity (it was only 8% here yesterday). I take them out and let them cool completely then place in Ziplocs and freeze. Depending on what I'm going to use them for, I either rehydrate in veg stock or oil or sometimes just add to whatever I'm cooking them into (cornbread, pasta sauce, etc...).
Let me know how yours turn out.

[Marian Worley]

I am doing some today and will give you feedback.
Thank you so much!

[Michelle W. Flannery]

Okay, it's August. Since June, on a daily basis, I've had more tomatoes than I could pick in a day. I've canned them, cooked them in sauces and various dishes, eaten them on sandwiches, sliced with breakfast, alone as snacks... Is anybody besides me getting a little tired of tomatoes? I know I'll miss them terribly this winter. But I think I've had my fill... and still they keep coming!

[Marian Worley]

I keep telling myself that I will be thanking myself come January. And you know you will. But it is getting harder to stay motivated. That being siad, I am heading off to the garden and then the kitchen for some more..... well.... you know! Check out some of my catering pictures.

[Rose Keppler Moradian]

Hi, I found a pretty good website that I feel shares KGI interests. Heres a link to it with a recipe:http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/diy-recipe/got-tomatoes-make-tom...