[growth] okay but how many tomatoes do I actually want to grow next year, though?

[kaberett]

The context: this evening I picked another three and a quarter kilos of tomatoes. (Which means I'm currently at about 15kg so far this year, not counting the ones the slugs got to before I did, which assuming a base price of £6/kg for tomatoes I'll actually enjoy eating is... definitely something).

I've put ~2kg of beefsteak tomatoes straight into a pan to turn into passata (along with some overripe plum and cherry tomatoes). The question I am pondering, though, is: do I, next year, want to grow enough tomatoes that I can actually make... enough of our own passata that we just don't buy any? If so, I need to work out how many jars we go through a year (which Can Be Done courtesy of supermarket receipts), and also I need to seriously rejig my idea of what all else I'll be growing because that's a lot of tomatoes, but I'm having Difficulty reconciling myself to any plausible middle ground...

... and also, well, the list of possible seeds to get next year, just for tomatoes, looks like this:

TOMATOES
? bush Aurora (sauce)
- Blue Fire
? Stupice
? Galina
? 'Gardener's Delight'
? Ferad
? Chocolate Cherry
? Orange Banana
? Peche Vilmorin
? Costoluto Fiorentino
- Green Zebra
? De Colgar

This year I had ~20 plants -- 10ish beefsteak, Feo de Rio Gordo; 5ish Chadwick Cherry; 5ish Purple Ukraine plum -- and while I started out a little dubious about the Chadwick Cherry and the Purple Ukraine the flavour of both has definitely grown on me over the course of the season, even as I am slightly disappointed in the actual colour the Purple Ukraine end up.

That's one full outside bed and one full greenhouse bed and honestly they're both rather overcrowded and could have done with more space, and also they are very much still cropping, and at some point in the next three-or-so months I need to actually make some decisions to get next year's lot started...

Comments

[kaberett]

A relevant point to consider is that part of my goal in growing my own tomatoes -- okay, well, an enormous part is that I really like fancy fresh tomatoes but I balk at paying reasonable supermarket prices for them and can only very rarely bring myself to do so; it's much easier to grow my own, to the point that this year I am finally at These Are Tasty And Everyday rather than These Are Precious And Must Be Hoarded, which is really nice! Actually!

But part of the appeal is very much the visual wossname of having a bowl full of MULTICOLOURED and DIFFERENTLY SHAPED tomatoes, so I'm considering growing 1-2 each of a wider variety of cultivars next year for salad-tomato-situation? Because TREASURE.

I've saved seed for both the Feo de Rio Gordo and the Purple Ukraine, anyway.

[alexwlchan]

🍅🍅🍅🍅🍅

It is way too late for me to offer constructive advice, but I can be excited at least. Hooray tomatoes! Hooray tasty food! Hooray variety!

I am slightly disappointed in the actual colour the Purple Ukraine end up

I could get you some Glowing Ukraine? Of the cultivar Solanum chernoblypsicum. Not disappointing in appearance*!

*Possibly disappointing for the damage they’ll do to your allotment, saucepan, and teeth

[alexseanchai]

many tomat!

*googles passata* ohhh so it's the better version of the thing Mom has complained for years that stores only sell one brand of when there's five brands of tomato sauce, gotcha

[fyreharper]

Multicolored and differently shaped tomatoes = VERY YES

Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[ewt]

Orange Banana: grew last year but not this year (...though I might have one plant in there? I've forgotten and my labels are no longer accessible). Enormous ridiculous sprawling plant. Prone to blossom end rot when I grew it but that could have been overcrowding-related, I am terrible at giving tomatoes enough space. It was pretty tasty though and definitely bright orange.

Chocolate Cherry: grew last year and this year; delicious, but definitely for eating fresh rather than in passata as it's very juicy. Prone to splitting if not harvested promptly.

Costoluto Fiorentino: grew one plant this year. Not amazed by flavour to be honest, it's still better than any shop bought tomato I've had of similar size, but also kind of a faff to prepare (funny shaped plus a fair amount of core) and the woodlice seem to really like it. I probably won't grow this one again but I'm glad I tried it.

(My tastiest big tomatoes this year have both been round beefsteak types: Cherokee Purple, which is more of a deep red, and a random orange one I got at the distanced plant sale back in April. I'm also looking forward to Amish Paste ripening Real Soon Now. I started my tomatoes super late and didn't plant them out promptly and have mostly neglected them since, and they're all outside.)

[simont]

DIFFERENTLY SHAPED tomatoes

... remind me of the politics-themed board game Die Macher which I've played about twice. It includes a deck of cards indicating positions for or against assorted political issues. The issue cards for and against GM crops have a cute cubical tomato as illustration.

[aldabra]

How do you preserve a year's worth of passata? That sounds like canning rather than freezing. All my canning resources come with neon flashing warnings about canning tomatoes, because all the current varieties are dangerously less acidic than they were in the 1970s.

Re: Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[kaberett]

I am very interested in knowing what you make of the Amish Paste!

Thank you lots for the tomato intelligence more generally <3

Re: Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[ewt]

I liked Amish Paste a lot last year but it wasn't in a very sunny spot, and struggled. This year it has more sun but I started very late.

[kaberett]

My intention, which the internet seems to suggest is safe though I might shake google scholar and see what comes out, is putting it into hot sterile jars (while itself hot) and then water-bathing it for ~15 minutes. But even then that would take up a lot of space and I'm not convinced it's necessarily the best use of anyone's time or energy or storage...

Re: Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[kaberett]

Noted! I think I ought to be able to give it a reasonable amount of sun, so maybe I will try it. Hmm.

[kaberett]

LEXIE.

[alexwlchan]

You’re right, this is a bad idea. How are you going to provide teeth for gnashing if they’ve been dissolved by your latest batch of tomatoes?

[brainwane]

I remember Alex Bayley on one of their blogs detailing how to can/preserve in a way that was less fussy but still sterilized things adequately, but it might be one of their blog that's disappeared, sadly. The "putting it into hot sterile jars (while itself hot) and then water-bathing it for ~15 minutes" sounds similar to what they mentioned.

[ewt]

It's possible to measure acidity level, which will give a decent idea of safety; Brix (sugar content) is also relevant. Adding citric acid to bring it up to acceptable acidity is also a thing, and some added salt will also help. Heritage varieties like the ones kaberett is growing tend to be more acidic anyway, these aren't modern supermarket tomatoes in the first place.

Further, if you're concerned about botulism in particular (which is The Big Risk), some canned foods (not all, it depends whether they'll scorch before getting hot enough) can be heated very thoroughly for ten minutes immediately prior to eating. I can't remember the exact required temperature offhand and I would probably go with adding citric acid and salt, myself. But if I had a huge glut of not-very-acidic tomatoes and no freezer options available and didn't want to pickle them (I like pickled cherry tomatoes, I'm less keen on others) and also didn't have any citric acid, lemon juice or vinegar to add to make them acidic enough, I would can them anyway and mark them "boil for 10min before consumption".

I can't recommend anyone else do this, obviously, it's a bit dicey, and I would never ever feed such food to a guest. If you're canning and you think you might have messed up then binning the result is always the safest thing. But it's not an unknowable thing, if you're aware of the chemistry starting out.

[ewt]

PS the "add citric acid" thing doesn't apply to every food; if you're not sure, assume that what I've written here about that is relevant only to to tomatoes.

[aldabra]

... although, fifteen different kinds of passata, from fifteen different colours of tomato? That sounds maybe like a proof-of-principle project well suited to a year when we're probably still in intermittent lockdown...

Re: Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[ewt]

I mean, I think "not behind three other tomato plants" and "sow seeds earlier than, er, April" would probably be fine in combination...

[sporky_rat]

....I want some?

Re: Random unsolicited tomato reviews

[sporky_rat]

Oh I love Cherokee Purple as tomato sandwiches. So tasty.

[alexwlchan]

🤨

We’re not in the same COVID bubble, so I can’t bring you the seeds directly, but I can hook you up with my dealer. He’s an ex-KGB spy. I don’t ask how he gets them, I don’t ask him about his injuries, and he doesn’t ask me who my employer is. It’s a bit odd, but it works.

At 5pm next Friday, drive to the abandoned Walmart on the far side of town. Wear something red. If my contact arrives, he’ll be driving a grey sedan that’s missing the cover on one of the wing mirrors. Knock on the passenger side window, and say “Greetings from Alexander”*. This will tell him that you know me, and he will reply “East Berlin is nice this time of year”.

(If he replies something different, this means his cover has been blown. Walk away, and make sure you’re not being followed as you drive home. Destroy whatever clothing you were wearing.)

The following Thursday, please keep Holly and Justina out of the kitchen overnight, and make sure you’ve gone to bed before midnight. The seed packet will be placed next to your toaster oven, along with what appears to be a Monopoly set. If you cut open the board, you should find instructions printed on silk. Read, memorise, and then burn.

Enjoy your tomatoes!

—

*This may sound made up, but no, “Greetings from Alexander” really was a code phrase used by at least one KGB handler during the Cold War.

[sporky_rat]

takes notes furiously

[fyreharper]

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/foodborne-illness-and-disease/clostridium-botulinum/ct_index

The “How is the Toxin Produced in Food?” section talks about boiling the food before eating, to destroy any toxin that’s developed while being stored at room temperature - so perhaps not so dicey! Though I do wish it specified whether the 10 minutes was for a closed jar (where the center would take longer to get hot) or for the contents dumped into a pot (everything at boiling temps for 10 minutes).

This is interesting! I did not know that botulism toxin was heat sensitive!

[ewt]

Yeah, it's totally legit, but it's not straightforward because some foods are just going to burn before getting hot enough, which is why I don't generally recommend it.

But if I were doing this, I would decant the contents into a pan, myself. Bringing a cold jar up to boiling temperature is going to take longer (and putting a cold, full jar into already-boiling water is dangerous anyway). And if the instructions meant re-boiling the thing in the jar, they'd be giving different lengths of time for different sized jars.

With tomatoes, it should generally be possible to start by killing off the organism (not just denaturing the toxin) at the preserving end of the operation.

[fyreharper]

Passata rainbow!

[kaberett]

... you make an extremely compelling argument (esp. if as I suspect I shan't even be doing this continuing education course...)

[randomling]

This may or may not be a relevant data point, but if I end up Local to you, I will happily trade delicious tomatoes for cash monies if desired?