Picked my first tomatoe and green pepper

I'm so excited as I've said before this is my first time at a successful garden that's actually producing. The tomatoe is delicious and a far cry from the ones we get in the produce section at the grocers. Just wanted to share the thrill! Thanks, Denise

Congratulations denise! My DH(raised on store-bought) looked at me the other night over a side dish of broiled homegrown tomatoes and said, 'What are we going to do this winter?!?'. LOL :)

Way to go Denise. In my opinion the worst tomato from my garden is so much better than store bought.

Angie, freeze or dry some of the summer's bounty. That's what I do for winter use :) Especially my sweet peppers. And garlic. And onion. And herbs. Lots of work? Yep. Worth it? Definitely! Spoken as a true food-lover.

freeze tomatoes? whole skins and all?

Thanks for sharing and as usual much info. so, here goes with much questions? lupinelover, how do you dry them?, especially if you don't have one of those drying machines?ecobioangie, ? you say freeze the whole thing, yeh? Any special way, baggies etc...? elsie I definitely agree. Thanks all. Denise

tomden, you didn't ask me but i jump in here anyway. I have found that the small cherry tomatoes freeze very well. Just freeze them in layers, when frozen bag them and when you want to use some for salad, or whatever, just take what you want out of the bag. You can add them to a salad just before you put on the table and they will be eatable right away. Donna

Thanks Rutholive, sorry Donna, Denise

Yep! I even freeze Roma maters, especially when I'm short of time when it comes to canning. Lay them on a baking sheet, single layer, and put in the deep freeze. Whene they're frozen solid you can put them in gallon and two-gallon size freezer bags. (These things are so cool! When frozen they bang together and sound like cue balls!)

When you want to use them, thaw them out, the skins slip right off, and they are ready for soups, stews, sauces, etc!

Shoe, thanks for the info on freezing Roma tomatoes.

Horseshoe, Do I slice the tomatoe and put on baking sheet? You did say they sound like cue balls, that would be whole, right, anyway can you slice too? Anyone know how to dry them out? Denise

Denise, I'm sure you could slice them...when frozen they'd take up less room that way too, eh? I froze mine whole then bagged them. It was mainly to give me more time to work with them. I have a deep freeze that had plenty of room in it so wasn't too concerned about the space (plus they only took up the space of a brown paper grocery bag). Also, I froze them whole cuz I'm a definite lazybones. I didn't even want to take time to slice them!

I've only dried tomatoes in a store-bought dehydrator but I hear tell that some folks use their ovens.

Denise, I was able to sign onto e-mail enough to see you sent me a message: I can't access it yet, but I'm working on it! I hate computers sometimes.

I have a dehydrator, so I dry mine in that. I slice them in half or thirds, then put on the trays. They dry in 1-2 days, depending on the weather.

If you have a gas oven with a pilot light, you can lay them on trays that way, leave the oven door open slightly. You can also do that with an electric oven, but make sure you turn the heat on briefly, then back off for a while, trying to keep the oven temp 80-90F.

If you are blessed with a hot sunny dry climate (southern CA type), you can just hang the cut stems in the sun, they dry within a few days.

Thanks, no I have a modern gas oven with electronic pilot, would prefer the old kind but have to work with what I have so you say turn oven on low just a few min.? Thanks, Denise

Hmmm...I used to germinate seeds in our oven! Not with the pilot light or the heating element but by turning on the light in there. If your oven has a glass viewing door and a light bulb maybe you could put a thermometer in there, turn on the light, crack the door a bit, and see what temp it gets to in there.

'Shoe, that would probably work! My dehydrator seems to work on tomatoes best at about 90F, so a 100 watt lightbulb inside an enclosed place would generate that much heat! Good thinking. Not sure a gas oven would be an ideal place for an electric bulb, tho.

Denise, can you give that a try? Do you have a big-enough container to put a tray of tomatoes inside, and a light for a few hours? Won't cost anything but a few tomatoes if it doesn't work. If it does, you saved yourself a bunch of money! And maybe you can invent a better one and sell it!

Lupy...my gas oven has one of those lights in it. Course NOW ya'll got me thinkin'!

Maybe puttin in a 12 hr candle would work too! Eh? Or a few votive candles? anything to generate heat. And if no light in the oven (from the factory) maybe a drop cord with a light plugged to it?

Mercy me, we gotta get Denise a way to do this now!

Just happened to see a recipe for making oven-dried tomatoes. I am going to post it in Recipe Forum. Check it out!

Edited to add link: http://davesgarden.com/t/395767/

This message was edited Wednesday, Aug 27th 7:59 PM

Thanks lupinelover. Denise Additional question, can you use this recipe even after freezing? Thanks, Denise

This message was edited Thursday, Aug 28th 2:35 PM

I froze some little ones last night, and you're right Shoe, they DO sound like cue balls! :) Are they all squishy when thawed out or are they firm again?

Semi-squooshy when thawed, if you froze whole small tomatoes.

If you are hoping for a tomato capable of being sliced onto a sandwich, sorry. If you are hoping for a tomato able to be put onto a salad that is thousand times better than the sorry things in the supermarkets, you are in for a treat :)

Denise, I don't know how it would work after being frozen then thawed. Try it and let us know how it works! Even if it doesn't come out perfect, you have a good base for some pasta sauce.

Thanks, Denise

Guess I'll have to go to Farmer's Market as soon as they open again, my maters totalled one exactly.

What happened Aimee? Denise

To my maters? Or Farmer's Market?

The maters, I don't know. I thought I was going to have heirloom plants from a lady here who is into that, but the first one shriveled up just as it was beginning to produce. I had one little so-so cherry tomato. She had bushels of them to put into her freezer. The second one, which I bought as a seedling, was the victim of the many overcast days and only made three tomatoes, beefsteak type, which sat on the vine for two months with no new growth, no ripening. That one is in San Antonio at my DD's house, where I planted it in a huge pot I placed at Granddarling's bedroom window and made her responsible for it. She faithfully checked and watered, and the sun was what I thought was just right. It did grow, and I coached them by phone about tying it to the trellis and things like that. But it only made those three, and then a windstorm came along and mangled it. I re-tied it when I was there recently, hoping for more since it's in a tropical zone there. Now my third one, again grown from the heirloom seed supply, is about 24" tall and has blooms, but it appears they aren't going to set fruit. I'm thinking there is something here that is causing it, although I planted them at least 50' apart.

Farmer's Market should re-open this week. But in the past they were bad about sneaking in hothouse tomatoes from California, so I don't know if I am destined to taste a real homegrown tomato this year.

Aimee,Don't give up hope, I've been told myself the weather has been strange this year. I had one out of four and the fourth one shriveled up, I cut it almost all the way down thinking there's no hope for it and the little thing is determined to stay and is sprouting. I had some torch oil in early spring that fell and poured in garden seemed to be loosing some plants and veggies and the other day had a good rain from God and what a miracle the ones that were completely shriveled up and thought for gone revived themselves and you know it's strange because I've been watering all along, must be something in the rain! Denise