Last Saturday, (that is last Saturday but one by the time you read this, a.ka. the 16th) we processed most of the tomatoes that we had harvested the previous Thursday, ahead of the rain storm.
On the right are the ripest ones, mostly Heirloom Marriage and on the left are the less ripe, mainly Cuore di bella. the CdB are the sweetest tomatoes I think I have ever tasted, but the crack like no tomato ever. Fortunately, most of the cracks heal over readily. Only a few have molded and gone to the pigs.
Only Winnie and Daddy home at the start of this process.
No worries, Winnie is here to help.
The peeling is fairly quick with the Heirloom Marriage tomatoes. I put a colander full in the boiling water for 60 seconds, then moved it to the cold water and dumped it in. Then a quick twist with the paring knife, and the core and skin all come right off into the pig bucket.
The Cuore were a little less convenient as the splits often needed to be cut out, and the blossom ends have a little hard core that also needs to be cut out.
We did 5 jars of whole tomatoes (small HM’s only) and the rest as crushed/diced. Kathleen arrived in time to inspect the water-bath process. And believe me, it was a process. 1 hour and 25 minutes of processing, after the water came back to a boil. We don’t make the rules. We read them out of the Bibl… I mean the Ball Blue Book.
The final haul. 4 pints of whole tomatoes, and 8 pints of crushed/diced.
Three of them siphoned and didn’t seal, and one pint cracked in the canner. They will feature in tomorrow’s blog…
Little Farm in the Big City 