You’ve got labored laborious cultivating your backyard and have been rewarded with a tomato harvest—now what? This put up will present you precisely tips on how to benefit from the fruits of your labour (pun supposed!). Right here’s what to do with tomatoes, whether or not they’re ripe or nonetheless inexperienced.

As summer season involves an finish, it leaves us with an ample bounty of contemporary, scrumptious meals. It’s great to chunk right into a ripe, sun-warmed tomato right now of 12 months, however it additionally feels a bit of unhappy as a result of you realize that the chilly season is coming and shortly you’ll have to attend nearly a complete 12 months for the contemporary style of summer season.

Fortunately, it doesn’t should be this manner! Take some time now to study preserving tomatoes. These easy strategies will allow you to discover consolation within the sunny style of summer season, even within the useless of winter.

This put up will cowl…

What to Do With Tomatoes

With a bit of planning and easy preparation, you may harvest that bounty of tomatoes in your backyard and protect them for the winter months. Whether or not you need the simplest attainable methodology (freezing) or one thing a bit extra advanced (canning), the strategies outlined on this put up are easy and sensible.

Rising tomatoes is nice for everybody, rookies and professionals alike as a result of they’re tremendous simple to develop. Plus, the flavour of the homegrown model is unparalleled within the grocery retailer.

There are such a lot of styles of tomato that you would be able to certainly discover some that fit your backyard. Small-space gardeners can select dwarf or container crops, short-season growers can select fast-maturing varieties. Even those that reside in wet climates (like me!) can develop tomatoes that produce effectively on cloudy days.

How to Plant an Upside Down Tomato cherry tomatoes — I reside in a reasonably wet local weather and may nonetheless develop a bounty of tomatoes yearly.

With all of those choices, it’s laborious to not have a bumper crop of tomatoes prepared on the finish of the season. Having extra harvest than you realize what to do with is overwhelming, not solely as a result of you end up scrambling so as to add them to each meal attainable however as a result of you know the way a lot you’ll miss them within the winter.

Once you’re overwhelmed with a crop, it’s unimaginable to not begin taking it with no consideration and get a bit of uninterested in consuming it. However, come January, you’ll be wishing for that contemporary summer season style that you would be able to now not get your palms on.

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to take when preserving that mean you can get pleasure from them within the colder months. If the climate is starting to chill or your tomato crops have succumbed to the dreaded Late Blight, then it’s time to reap the lot of them and put them away for the winter.

Listed below are some concepts that will help you work out what to do with tomatoes.

A handful of tiny tomatoes — Don’t let the tomatoes go to waste on the vine. You may shortly save them for a wintery day.

Freeze Tomatoes

It is a good way to make use of a big crop, and it couldn’t be simpler. Listed below are the three steps to observe:

Merely wash ripe tomatoes and take away the stems. I like to recommend following the steps on this put up about tips on how to wash fruit and greens correctly.
Gently pat them dry.
Pop them right into a freezer bag and freeze them till prepared to make use of.

What to Do with Frozen Tomatoes

Initially, it’s vital to notice that when frozen, the feel will change. Thawed tomatoes should not agency just like the contemporary ones are, however if you’re planning to make use of them in cooking, they’re fast and simple to take away from the bag and toss within the recipe.

I discover myself reaching for these tomatoes at any time when I need to make sauce, soups, or casseroles. The flavour is great for these saucy form of meals.

Garden tomatoes ready to freeze in a plastic bag — You may’t eat frozen tomatoes thawed. They need to be cooked into one thing.

Dehydrate Tomatoes

Seize a dehydrator and make some dried tomatoes! These style similar to the sun-dried model that was in nearly every thing 20 years in the past. Drying grape tomatoes at residence makes for a scrumptious option to protect them for the winter months. Right here’s how one can simply dehydrate tomatoes:

Lower cherry or grape tomatoes in half.
Add them to the layers of a meals dehydrator. You too can use the oven and place them on a baking sheet within the oven on low for 8-12 hours
Retailer in an hermetic container.

What to Do With Dehydrated Tomatoes

That is one among my favorite strategies I take advantage of when determining what to do with tomatoes from my backyard. I like the style and discover myself including them to every thing. A couple of concepts embrace:

Add them to your pizza or quiche
Marinate them in herbs and oil to serve with antipasto
Layer them in a salad
Sprinkle them onto your favorite dinner

Truthfully, you may’t go improper with these! A bit goes a great distance so be conservative.

A pan of dehydrated tomatoes in the oven — Dehydrating works greatest with the little tomatoes, cherry or grape.

Can Tomato Sauces, Soups, and Extra

After all, one of the vital fashionable choices when questioning what to do with tomatoes is canning. You may cook dinner tomatoes and make a wide range of completely different recipes, resembling pasta sauce, soup, salsa, and pizza sauce. I prefer to roast the tomatoes with garlic first after which use them within the recipe.

As with all canning recipes, you should definitely observe the substances and course of them accordingly, as canning could be harmful if not finished correctly.

jars of homemade tomato sauce — Add a customized label, and this pizza sauce can even be a terrific present.

What to Do With Inexperienced Tomatoes

On the finish of the season, you’ll often find yourself with a bunch of tomatoes in numerous phases of ripening, that means you’ll have fairly a little bit of inexperienced tomatoes.

Whereas inexperienced tomatoes are pretty fried and in salsa, there’s a straightforward option to ripen the remainder of the crop indoors the place it’s nonetheless toasty heat. Select to ripen solely the tomatoes which might be clear and disease-free.

The right way to Ripen Inexperienced Tomatoes

Ripening inexperienced tomatoes is straightforward! All you will have to do is:

Maintain them on the vine as you might be selecting them.
Set them in a field or bowl away from direct daylight.
Test them each day and take away those who have ripened.

Straightforward and scrumptious!

Green tomatoes ripening indoors — These inexperienced tomatoes that aren’t on the vine received’t ripen.

Save Your Tomato Seeds for Subsequent 12 months

Maybe an important a part of what to do with tomatoes for gardeners is saving the seeds. This may mean you can have one other nice harvest subsequent 12 months! Study all about tips on how to save tomato seeds by way of fermentation right here.

Saving tomato seeds is a bit of completely different than different veggie seeds, as you have to ferment them.

FAQ About Harvesting Tomatoes

How do I do know my tomatoes are able to be picked?

Tomatoes start to ripen from the underside, turning from inexperienced to varied shades of pink, yellow, and orange. To know when to choose the tomato, have a look at the underside. When it begins to melt ever so frivolously, it’s time to reap.

If you wish to eat it immediately, decide it when the color has reached the highest. If you wish to eat it in a day or two, go away a bit of little bit of inexperienced on the high. It can totally ripen in your counter in a day, protected against rain and bugs.

The place do you chop the tomatoes when harvesting?

Go away a bit of little bit of vine in your tomato till you’re able to eat. If all of the tomatoes on one vine are prepared on the similar time, I’ll clip the entire vine and go away the tomatoes hooked up. But when they’re all prepared at completely different phases, I take separately, leaving the highest little bit of vine that linked it to the plant.

Ought to I decide my tomatoes earlier than they flip pink?

It’s utterly as much as you. You may decide them simply earlier than they’re prepared, as talked about above, or once they’re totally ripe. Take into account that once they’re totally ripe, they’re extra more likely to be eaten by birds or bugs like tomato hornworms. They will additionally cut up in the event that they obtain a sudden consumption of water, resembling a from a rainstorm. That being stated, you will get barely higher flavour in case you enable it to ripen totally on the vine.