Monday, October 01, 2012

an abundance of green tomatoes

With the early frosts we've had, my tomato plants got hit hard, leaving me with an abundance of unripened tomatoes.  As in, a full garden wagon and two 5-gallon buckets full of unripened tomatoes.   

While I would have loved for all of these heirloom beauties to have ripened and blessed me with tomato sauce, juice, and salsa, I wasn't about to let the green ones go to waste.

After much chopping and mixing and cooking and canning, I managed to put several quarts of green-tomato goodies in the pantry this weekend.

I pickled the cherry tomatoes, made pie filling from the mortgage lifters, relish from the genovese, and jam from whatever was left over.  I still have a good 20 pounds to use up, as well as a shelf-full of some that look like they might turn red for me.

Though I hated to spend such a gorgeous weekend inside chopping tomatoes, I am happy to have this bounty tucked away for colder days.

How was your weekend?  Hope your week gets off to a good start.

9 comments:

julochka said...

i have a few green tomatoes, but probably only enough for a jar or two of relish. i did, however, can 4 big jars of whole pears, 7 jars of pear-ginger jam, 4 liters of elderberry cordial and 4 jars of raspberry jam. it makes me feel so virtuous and industrious.

Sonia / COZY MEMORIES said...

YAY, you'll be so happy on cold days ahead when you'll have so much sunny goodness to delect with !
You know what I did this weekend, I was knee deep in HTML, CSS & photo taking. But it was all worth it ! I love how it looks now !
Big warm hugs my friend !
xoxo

Anonymous said...

Mostly green tomatoes get red even if you already harvested them. If you want them to get red faster, put them and a ripe apple/banana/tomato into a plasticbag. The ripe fruit will release ethylene which is a aeriform planthormon. It induces ripeness to climacteric fruits!

Anonymous said...

If you know there is a frost coming, you can pull up the entire plant, then hang it upside down from a rafter or some such place and the tomatoes will continue to ripen on the vine. You will need to make sure air can circulate around the suspended plants and there is some sunlight filtering in. Don't put them in the attic. A garage, shed or barn is great. We have done this when we have fall tomatoes in the south and we know our first frost is coming. Fortunately in our part of the country, we are pretty "tired" of tomatoes by that time, late Oct. or NOV.

joanie said...

You're a STAR!!! Now if only I could taste them :)
Jx

Bunny said...

It is a touch decision, one I have dealt with lately.Do I stay inside and put up more food or go out in the beautiful fall air? I know come January I made the right choice.

Anonymous said...

Wow!! Great job:) People that have never canned don't realize the amount of work! THAT was ALOT of work you did! I have 21 quarts of tomatoes, and 15 quarts of sauce ready for the winter! Of course, I cheated, and bought my canning tomatoes, but the ones for my sauce all came from my garden!!! Have a great week Lisa:)

Vintage Tracy said...

My neighbor told me to put them in a paper bag to ripen...so I'm trying that. I haven't stuck my toe into canning yet! But that looks delish!

Ilix said...

Yummy! That is a great idea! I have never been really confident using up green tomatoes, but these ideas could be great! Thanks for sharing.

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