Gardening: My Tomatoe and Pepper Progress

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I'm with sickboy on everything he said.

In my limited experience, if the leaves look good and the plant is bushy, you're doing alright. Might just be a small variety. Tomatoes want calcium and magnesium, so you might try a fertilizer to help with that. I've recommended Cal-Mag before, if you're looking for advice. Smells just like Listerine :) Can't hurt.

Those tomatoes look pretty edible to me. If you're getting a bunch of those, I'd say your glass is more than half full.
 
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The perfect tomato, a unicorn, a yeti, a yeti riding a unicorn while drinking a HB, it is an endless search and a hell of a lot of work! I agree with IMA and PP on selecting the best variety for your area, and the use of a good well balanced fertilizer. Cal-Mag works great in most soils. Can't stress enough a soil analysis for your garden. I've kept a spreadsheet of the tomato and pepper varieties that have worked for me over the past 18 years. With the GH, I always try a few new varieties, looking for that successful addition. But in the end, my best tomato crops have been started early, by seed, in the GH, early into the garden (mid-March in north DFW) with a cool spring. Most years, the spring tomato crop is OVER by mid-July, regardless of variety. Too hot and dry....
 
Before, after the smoker, and after the oven.

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passedpawn said:
I'm with sickboy on everything he said.

In my limited experience, if the leaves look good and the plant is bushy, you're doing alright. Might just be a small variety. Tomatoes want calcium and magnesium, so you might try a fertilizer to help with that. I've recommended Cal-Mag before, if you're looking for advice. Smells just like Listerine :) Can't hurt.

Those tomatoes look pretty edible to me. If you're getting a bunch of those, I'd say your glass is more than half full.
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I use cheap Epsom salt on my tomatoes, and it does wonders, especially when mixed with rain water.
 
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My tomatoes are producing. I grew them in a slightly raised bed with some fresh topsoil purchased down the road. It's got what they call Dairy Doo mixed into it. Composted Cow Manure.

I had a ton of green tomatoes on the plants, and now they seem to be turning red. I've got to get a good sauce recipe picked out before long.

The cherry and grape tomatoes did well as well, but I have to pick them before they are really ripe because they are splitting their skins when they get too big!
 
Made spaghetti sauce the other day with some of my Roma tomatoes. Looked kind of funny right up until it got thick. Never made it before, so I wasn't sure how it was goign to turn out. Added garlic (but not enough, I think), onion, green peppers, basil, and since I didn't have any oregano, some Italian spices).

And salt. It was pretty bland without salt. After it simmered a bit longer it was pretty good, but wife and I decided it needed some Tabasco Sauce to liven it up. Not too much, since the kid won't eat it if she senses any heat, but enough to maybe get her to eat it without noticing! ;)

Wife mentioned making Lasagna this weekend with it!

And in other news, I still have too many cherry/grape tomatoes, and I wondered how they would work in pizza sauce. I think they are generally sweeter than regular tomatoes, and I think there is enough to make a few pies with right now, not counting what's still growing out there.
 
Homercidal said:
And in other news, I still have too many cherry/grape tomatoes, and I wondered how they would work in pizza sauce. I think they are generally sweeter than regular tomatoes, and I think there is enough to make a few pies with right now, not counting what's still growing out there.
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The problem with the little tomatoes is that the skin/pulp ratio is way out of balance. You'd have to have a way to remove the skins, maybe try blanching the tomatoes and force the pulp through a strainer to catch the skin. But it's gonna take a lot of little tomatoes to make this work.
 
corkybstewart said:
The problem with the little tomatoes is that the skin/pulp ratio is way out of balance. You'd have to have a way to remove the skins, maybe try blanching the tomatoes and force the pulp through a strainer to catch the skin. But it's gonna take a lot of little tomatoes to make this work.
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Yeah, I decided to just add them to the big pot of sauce I was making to use them up. They were getting old. Very little meat in there, just skin and seeds, mostly.

I'm caught up now. I probably should have picked a few more fruits this weekend, but with everything going on, I was lucky to get a pot of sauce to cook down. Not sure when I can do that now! Maybe I will get my wife to watch it while I work on my Jeep.

She made lasagna yesterday from the sauce we made. It was ok, but didn't have the sharp tomato flavor you get from the jar. Maybe just didn't have enough salt, I don't know. Wasn't as red, but I'm not sure if store sauce uses food coloring to make it look better. I'll have to check their labels.

My plants are now officially starting to yellow up. Summer is ending. :(
 
corkybstewart said:
The problem with the little tomatoes is that the skin/pulp ratio is way out of balance. You'd have to have a way to remove the skins, maybe try blanching the tomatoes and force the pulp through a strainer to catch the skin. But it's gonna take a lot of little tomatoes to make this work.
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We can our tomatoes every year including our cherry tomatoes along with the full size tomatoes. The best way to skin any ripe tomato is to put them in a pot of very hot water until the skin splits. Take them out of the hot water, dunk them into your sink full or big bowl of very cold water until they are cool to the touch, the skins will peel off with ease. We do this all the, it is a little messy but works like a charm.
 
My one tomato plant, the one which yielded 3 tomatoes all year, is actually producing them now - in late September. I wonder if it was just too hot for the plant before? I thought my planter was too small (maybe about 2 gallons) but who knows.

Also, my habanero plant is sprouting new ones, and I still haven't picked the old ones. The little $3 plant has produced about 30 or 35 peppers now, which is kind of cool.
 
I'm going to start fermenting a batch of hot sauce tonight with my habs and tabascos.

As for the cherry tomatoes, I've never made sauce with them, but I've made amazing salsa with them. Best salsa I've ever made. I tried it because I had so many of them I didn't know what else to do. Seems like I remember checking the pH too and it was spot on before I canned it. In my experience making sauce doesn't work so good unless you have a tomato for it, Romas are my personal favorite sauce tomato. If you heat it long enough, you can get some of the excess water out but it's hard to keep it from scorching unless you just stir like made.
 
My chilies in the self watering thing I built did really well and are still producing. The Habanero I put in the ground though is 3 times the size! And it is still producing, though not as heavily as the smaller plants in the Walmart bags on the pipe. The one in the ground does not get as much sun as the others most likely.
 
And my friend's mom just posted her famous family secret recipe for spaghetti sauce last night. I wish it had been before I cooked down the last batch of tomatoes!

Oh well, there are still plenty in the garden. The last batch I made didn't have anything added; just cooked down sauce. Maybe I can add a few things and cook a bit longer to make it taste like hers??

Which reminds me, I have to copy that recipe before she takes it down. Some of her family is already getting on her for giving it out. While I appreciate having a special family secret recipe, I also REALLY want that recipe!
 
Well, I had to have my SIL hang out with me this evening because she's diabetic and can't be left alone in our house or she will eat herself sick. So I had her pick the tomatoes while I worked on my Jeep.

She picked ALL the tomatoes!

Even after I explained how to pick the red or orange tomatoes, I came back to check on her and there was a bunch of green ones in there. There are a few leff on the plants, but only because she hadn't quite got round to that side.

*sigh*

I got two more totes to have her separate them and explained again not to pick the green ones. I think she has it now. I am not particularly fond of fried green tomatoes, but I may be forced to try them again. Not sure what else to do but maybe let them turn red over time, and I'm not sure how they will taste if I do that.

On the bright side, I found the zucchini hasn't grown any over the past several days so I think they are finally done, and I found one small Bell Pepper, so that makes two small peppers out of 4 plants. :(
 
Homercidal said:
Well, I had to have my SIL hang out with me this evening because she's diabetic and can't be left alone in our house or she will eat herself sick. So I had her pick the tomatoes while I worked on my Jeep.

She picked ALL the tomatoes!

Even after I explained how to pick the red or orange tomatoes, I came back to check on her and there was a bunch of green ones in there. There are a few leff on the plants, but only because she hadn't quite got round to that side.

*sigh*

I got two more totes to have her separate them and explained again not to pick the green ones. I think she has it now. I am not particularly fond of fried green tomatoes, but I may be forced to try them again. Not sure what else to do but maybe let them turn red over time, and I'm not sure how they will taste if I do that.

On the bright side, I found the zucchini hasn't grown any over the past several days so I think they are finally done, and I found one small Bell Pepper, so that makes two small peppers out of 4 plants. :(
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If you have enough, green tomato relish is awesome. Taste of home has a good recipe. Love it on cheese and crackers. Good on anything you use relish on too.
 
Granny would wrap green tomatoes with newspaper and put them in boxes under her bed. She would pull them out during the winter months, unwrap them and set them on a counter to ripen. They were still better than store bought ones. Her house was usually a little cold in the winter, probably low 60s.
 
Those green tomatoes will be ripe before you decide what to do with them, especially if exposed to sunlight. They will ripen in a day or 2 pretty easy.

I got my hot sauce fermenting. I just put the peppers in the food processor, added salt to a weight of about 5%, a teeny bit of water and W sauce, celery seed and black pepper. I added the oak chips tonight. Going to let it ferment 2 or 3 weeks, then put it in the blender. I will heat it to boiling before I bottle it. May even need to add some more vinegar to taste.

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Oldskewl said:
If you have enough, green tomato relish is awesome. Taste of home has a good recipe. Love it on cheese and crackers. Good on anything you use relish on too.
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shelly_belly said:
Granny would wrap green tomatoes with newspaper and put them in boxes under her bed. She would pull them out during the winter months, unwrap them and set them on a counter to ripen. They were still better than store bought ones. Her house was usually a little cold in the winter, probably low 60s.
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estricklin said:
Those green tomatoes will be ripe before you decide what to do with them, especially if exposed to sunlight. They will ripen in a day or 2 pretty easy.
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Good to know! I might try Green Tomato Relish and see what it's like. I know a guy who loves fried green tomatoes. He might take a few.
 
I just finished this hot sauce using 3 dozen Caribbean Red Habeñeros and 1 dozen cayenne peppers I harvested.

My habeñeros grew like weeds; not too shabby for my first attempt at growing them. This is the second batch of hot sauce I made so far, and there's probably 5 dozen or so more habeñeros peppers still not even turning colors yet... not to mention the 40 or so cayenne peppers I have drying, and there's a couple of dozen on the plants still too.

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Apple_Jacker said:
I just finished this hot sauce using 3 dozen Caribbean Red Habeñeros and 1 dozen cayenne peppers I harvested.

My habeñeros grew like weeds; not too shabby for my first attempt at growing them. This is the second batch of hot sauce I made so far, and there's probably 5 dozen or so more habeñeros peppers still not even turning colors yet... not to mention the 40 or so cayenne peppers I have drying, and there's a couple of dozen on the plants still too.
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And? Howz it taste? Hot?
 
From my parents' garden, which I also get to enjoy:

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Habs and jalapeños still coming in pretty solid, although slowing down now. Just whipped up a nice size batch of salsa with them.

They planted a single sprouted sweet potato earlier in the season alongside the chilis, tomatoes, and some other plants in an above ground planter. My dad went out last week to clean out the beds, and found a good network of sweet potatoes growing under everything. Amazed the chilis have done so well with everything competing in the same planter.
 
My garden is pretty much done. I still have some green onions and carrots. I plan to maybe pickle or can the carrots one of these days. The onions can hang out until we need them, but won't be for much longer. They are already starting to turn yellow. I think next year I will realize we don't need as much of those. And I will plant them further apart.

My wife will hate me for spending the time on it, but I think I'll be going bigger next year. I think I need a few cucumbers and I'd like to know why my green peppers were so slack. Maybe put in yellow squash in place of half of the zucchini.

I thought I had too many tomatoes, but honestly, making sauce was not very hard. I'd do it again and maybe also just can some diced tomatoes. I'm not sure they will end up any better than the Rotell brand tomatoes at the store, though.
 

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