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Michaela
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| Posted: June 04 2011 at 9:24am | IP Logged
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We got a great deal on 20 Early Girl tomato plants.
This year will be my first attempt at canning, and everything I've read says it's best to use Roma.
Soooo, for you knowledgable canning mommas....can you share your experience? Do you only use romas? A mixture of various tomatoes?
(I'll be posting a lot of canning questions this summer.   )
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Michaela
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 04 2011 at 12:51pm | IP Logged
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Romas are good for canning because they're a denser more fleshy tomato.. but any tomato may be canned.
What do you plan to can? whole tomatoes? sauce? paste? ketchup? salsa?
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Michaela
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| Posted: June 04 2011 at 4:59pm | IP Logged
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You mean I can make my own ketchup?
My new focus/motto should be "I don't have to buy it...Grow it or make it"
sooo much to learn!
My plan for the tomatoes was sauce, but it's expanded to include salsa. Roma plants are almost $4 each.  I think it's too late to try from seed. You're not too far from me....we're blessed if we get 90 days of sun to grow veggies.
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Michaela
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 04 2011 at 5:28pm | IP Logged
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yep.. but you might wait a bit.. the veggies will be clearanced sooner or later and you might be able to get some then. You might also check out any other nurseries around.. just because it's a stand alone nursery doesn't make it cost more.
I've been trying to grow from seed this year with a cold frame.. I've got squashes and cucumber, beans and peas coming up.. but none of the tomatoes, bell peppers, egg plant or broccoli  all I can think of is that maybe even with the cold frame it hasn't been warm enough for those.  I may try and buy tomomatoes plants at least.
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Karen T
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| Posted: June 06 2011 at 9:54pm | IP Logged
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I grow a lot of different tomatoes each year, usually between 20 and 30 plants altogether. I actually prefer mostly slicer-types over the paste tomatoes, although I always have some of each. The problem in canning is that if you have indeterminate tomatoes (the plant keeps growing taller and taller), the tomatoes come in fits and spurts (determinate tomatoes reach a certain height and set fruit mostly all at once, giving you a big batch at a time, great for canning). Most of my tomatoes are indeterminate b/c I like having tomatoes all summer to eat fresh. So when I have more than we can eat in a few days, but not enough to can yet, i toss them into a freezer bag until I have enough to can. I rinse them and if large, cut them into fourths so they'll freeze quickly. Don't bother to peel them, the peels will slip right off when they are thawed to can. Then you can "can" them as they are, or process into sauce, etc. Any excess water from the slicer type tomatoes ends up cooking off then anyway.
last year it was just too hot in August to can anything, so my tomatoes sat in the freezer waiting. I never did get around to canning them, but just pulled them out as needed and made sauce that day. Worked just fine.
Every year I say I won't plant as many tomatoes next year and every year I end up with just as many or more! Some friends and I get together for a seed co-op, where we pick a few varieties each year and share the cost of the seeds, peat pots and soil. One of the friends has rolling racks to put the trays in and large French doors across the back of her house to get lots of spring sun. We get together and plant, then transplant into pots, etc. several times over the season and end up with lots of great plants, for about 35 cents a seedling!
Karen
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JennGM
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| Posted: June 07 2011 at 7:12am | IP Logged
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Karen T wrote:
| The problem in canning is that if you have indeterminate tomatoes (the plant keeps growing taller and taller), the tomatoes come in fits and spurts (determinate tomatoes reach a certain height and set fruit mostly all at once, giving you a big batch at a time, great for canning). Most of my tomatoes are indeterminate b/c I like having tomatoes all summer to eat fresh. |
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Karen, your whole post was SOOOO helpful for me! How silly am I that I have been puzzling over determinate and indeterminate? Now I know!
I think I must usually go for indeterminate...and I enjoy having the tomatoes all summer long. Still waiting for my first batch!
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 07 2011 at 11:03am | IP Logged
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oh how silly of me not to mention it.. I just always use determinate because we have such a short season.. no point in having the plants keep going when the frost will just get them. 
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juststartn
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| Posted: July 07 2011 at 2:36pm | IP Logged
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I made ketchup in my crockpot, and quart after quart of salsa (we also grew jalapenos). I also canned up some wonderful vegetable soup base, with tomato being the key "base" for it all...made a wonderful beefy tomatoey vegetable soup in December!
Rachel
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mavmama
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| Posted: July 07 2011 at 3:12pm | IP Logged
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JodieLyn wrote:
| oh how silly of me not to mention it.. I just always use determinate because we have such a short season.. no point in having the plants keep going when the frost will just get them. |
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We did this one year and had fresh red tomatoes until December. The frost would have taken them by early October otherwise.
Just before the first killing frost, pull the vines, roots and all. hang them upside down in the basement or root cellar (any cool darkish place will do). They will continue to ripen slowly. I figured there was nothing to lose, and so tried it that year. Wonderful! Other years when we had no place to hang them I've made green tomato mince--my dad loves it. Me....ick!
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| Posted: July 07 2011 at 3:14pm | IP Logged
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I just read by August to start pinching off the new flowers to allow the green tomatoes that are already on the vine to ripen. The plant can then put all the energy to the remaining tomatoes, and not on newer ones that will never happen. I live in a much warmer zone than Jodie, though.
Our tomatoes are slow to ripen this summer. We've had 6 so far.
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Karen T
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You can also just pick them green, as long as they are large enough, put them in paper grocery bags and they'll ripen over time. They give off ethylene gas as they ripen, which then makes the others ripen. Don't put so many in one bag that the bottom ones will get smashed, though.
I've never bothered with pulling up the vines and still get plenty of ripe tomatoes past frost-time.
Karen
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: July 07 2011 at 8:16pm | IP Logged
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I make green tomato salsa.. it's really good.. more tart than red tomato salsa.. I serve it over a block of cream cheese with the heavier corn chip scoops.. yummy!
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Angel
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| Posted: July 08 2011 at 7:27am | IP Logged
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mavmama wrote:
We did this one year and had fresh red tomatoes until December. The frost would have taken them by early October otherwise.
Just before the first killing frost, pull the vines, roots and all. hang them upside down in the basement or root cellar (any cool darkish place will do). They will continue to ripen slowly. I figured there was nothing to lose, and so tried it that year. Wonderful! Other years when we had no place to hang them I've made green tomato mince--my dad loves it. Me....ick!
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We hung our tomatoes one year... but I didn't check them often enough (or something) and most of them just splatted on the garage floor. It was so disappointing!
I have had high hopes for my tomatoes in this warmer climate, but got them in late and my yellow pear tomatoes are all falling off into the dirt before they get ripe.  And they're not as tasty as I'd hoped. Wonder what I'm doing wrong?
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Angela
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4Real Forums : Our Lady's Loom, Larder, and Laundry
Topic: Growing (canning) tomatoes
