GA: Scotia are ripening (plants diseased like the other tomatoes but still producing)

^^^

GA: Tomato harvest is happening -- picking them blushing -- delicious!

So, yay!  The sad, pathetic tomato plants (which are very much like a lot of our allotment people's tomatoes) are managing to yield a few tomatoes each.  Not going to be tons of batches of tomato sauce, but, enjoying the ones that are coming in!

Tomatoes are finallyyyyy starting to blush!!!! GA and yard. (Other than a few cherry tomatoes, none have started to turn red until now)

I picked the blushing ones, because of the dump of rain yesterday, in case they crack.

FOY cherry tomatoes (Jasper) -- but only 2

Sigh, only 2 cherry tomatoes so far -- Scooter had one, I had the other.

I really shaded the yard tomatoes, given all the windy beans and volunteer potatoes.  And the allotment tomatoes, which have plenty of space and sun, are so wimpy -- will be lucky to get 10 tomatoes this year!

LATE BLIGHT on the tomatoes!!! Jasper (cherry) still look fine

Oh no!  I've been hearing for weeks now of late blight wiping out people's tomato harvests... Looks like it has finally reached my little yard.  There were still quite a few (maybe a dozen) big tomatoes that were green or barely starting to ripen -- most now are showing blight.  So, I pulled those tomatoes.  Left the others there for now.  At least I had a nice harvest up to now, can't complain.

The Jasper cherry tomatoes are still going gangbusters so far.

First cherry tomato harvest of season (Jasper)

2 cute lil' tomatoes!

Removed all tomato plants bec killed by late blight, except Jasper

Went ahead and pulled all of the Tofusteaks and Big Tofu Pluses, as they were mostly all crispy from the late blight.  Most of the fruits still on the plants were rott-y, so I tossed them, but did keep some including several all-green ones.  --> Edited a few days later to say that the rotting continued inside, so tossed all of the green ones; the red ones I had to peel off some blighty sections but the insides were fine.

Freezing raw/whole/plain tomatoes (easy peasy)

Having nearly completely run out of jars and freezer space, decided to try the one thing I NEVER do:  Freeze an actual vegetable instead of making something out of and freezing that.

Google says tomatoes can simply be frozen whole.  No nothing' needed beforehand.  So, I just removed the green stem (but didn't cut in to remove the scabby bit), gave them a quick soapy wash in the sink, put them on the counter to dry, then put them on a plate in the freezer.  Once frozen, into a bag they went, and sucked out the excess air.

Soooooo easy, and so nice to take a break from ALL. THE. COOKING. that I've been doing in recent months.

Should be easy peasy to later take them out and use them for new batches of minestrone, lentil tomato soup, bolognese, etc., sometime over the winter.

Tooooooo manyyyyy tomatoesssssssssssss

Well.  With 6 well-producing tomato plants, this is just too much.  Not to mention the one cherry tomato (Jasper variety), whose leaves are riddled now with septoria leaf spot or blight or something like that but keeps producing a nice gradual harvest over the last several weeks -- and also not to mention the the flops from the north bed most of which produced a few small tomatoes.

Too many tomatoesssssssssss.  It's been workable so far, but the freezer is definitely starting to approach capacity -- and I foresee quite a rush of tomatoes over the next couple of weeks.

Glad to see that the GEFC seems to accept people's fresh produce -- will most likely go that route soon.

So yes, the row of 3 x 2 tomatoes in the central bed, 3 of Big Tofu Plus and 3 Tofusteak:  One of the Tofusteak isn't that at all, ended up being some kind of determinate variety, so puny.  The others I had all topped several weeks ago in case that would help them start ripening, so they haven't had any new growth in a while, and each of these plants doesn't have a huge number of tomatoes, though many are quite big, so the cumulative amount of tomatoes is... a lot.

Then there's the one Tofusteak "leftover" at the south part of the central bed -- which, WOW, is just LOADED with tomatoes -- not giant ones, but very decent sized.  Really all I'd need is 2 plants like this plus one cherry tomato and that would be plenty for me.  But, you never know how plants will turn out (look how all the north bed ones ended up being total duds except for the Jasper), so, it is what is is.

Can't complain!

Tomato harvest ramping up -- a few big tomatoes per day

^^^

Big Tofu Plus tomato harvested -- a nice big one!

Wow, these are probably the biggest tomatoes I've grown!  Will give it a few more days to ripen inside before trying it.

First non-cherry tomatoes harvested (Scotia)

Not surprisingly, Scotia was the first to harvest.  Big Beef Plus has lots of really nice sized green tomatoes and Beefsteak has some slightly smaller ones, green as well.

Jasper cherry tomato first harvest (~3 tomatoes)

Seems pretty late for a cherry tomato.  The top of the plant has a fair number of more tomatoes coming in (green still) but sheesh it has been a slow start...

Final zucchini harvested! (26th, or 27th, or 28th) And all of the green tomatoes

Prior to -4 expected tonight, harvested final zucchini – not huge but enough to make a pancake.  The plant got zero sun in recent weeks due to fence / sun angle.

Also harvested the final tomatoes, still green.

Tomato plants dying, limited harvest, no new flowers

The cherry tomato looks the worst, with many yellow and/or crispy leaves, but the other tomato plants though look better also haven't produced new flowers/fruit in several weeks.

So it will be a relatively limited tomato harvest this year, but still actually pretty good, had many sandwiches and orzo salads, and have made two batches of bolognese so far, with likely at least two more batches to come using the rest of the tomatoes once they're ready.

Picking them at breaker stage has been working great, especially with the full size tomatoes; the cherry tomatoes are tending to be a bit weird texture like when they're harvested totally green.

Harvested first big tomatoes! Yellow Rainbow Blend ("darker seed")

At first I thought I was harvesting it at the breaker stage, but once I brought it inside I realized it's actually a yellow tomato.  This plant was from a "darker seed" from the Rainbow Blend.  Wasn't totally sure if it was ripe, but decided to throw caution to the wind and slice it and have it with a cucumber sandwich.  It seemed nice and ripe, but, I have to say, it was kind of bland.  Maybe I'm just not used to non-red tomatoes and it's a mental thing?  But it was very edible, and nice and firm to have in a sandwich.

Oh and while part of the exterior was nice and yellow, other parts are weird looking... looks like the inside is brownish...  I haven't sliced into those parts yet... hope there's nothing "interesting" in there...!  --> Edited to say I didn't find anything "interesting" in the brown parts.

Decided to also harvest the other blushing one on the same plant.  It's just as big but less yellow, has more ripening to do.  It also has weird-looking brownish colouration... we shall see...

"Breaker stage" tomato harvesting experiment: Yes!

How did I never come across this tomato harvesting tip until this year.

Did an experiment with the cherry tomatoes.  On the same day, I harvested one cherry tomato that was perfectly ripe, and several that were at the blushing / breaking stage.  I put the ripe one into its own container, and the others into another container.  The blush tomatoes ripened really quickly, within just a few days.  Then did a taste test.  Wow!  The tomatoes harvested at breaker stage were delicious, very flavourful!  Maybe even more so than the one that has harvested ripe, which had also split while sitting in the container waiting for the others to ripen.  Very unlike when in the fall I bring in totally green tomatoes to ripen -- those ones are pretty bland and have a weird texture.

So anyway, yes, I will definitely start harvesting tomatoes before they're fully ripened.  

Some of the benefits...

- Less splitting on the vine / rotting / flies getting into it

- Less chance of critters getting a taste of ripe tomatoes

- More energy available to send to green tomatoes on the plant

Tomatoes stopped flowering, harvest will be over soon

Noticed recently that the tomatoes have all stopped flowering.  Still ripening nicely resulting in TONS of tomatoes over the past few weeks (lots of Bolognese sauce this year), but, no new ones coming along.  I assume it's because of whatever disease this is that's affecting so many things.

And for the record, they all taste the same to me!  Scotia, beefsteak (which were no bigger than the others), collected seed, all tasted the same.

Tomato harvest now in full swing

Oh boy!!! Going to be LOTS of tomatoes this year, what with 6 full-size big-tomato plants (plus the two younger scotias in pots), plus the two cherry tomatoes!

All varieties are having ripened tomatoes now.

Scotia tomato first harvest

Scotia is the first of the non-cherry tomatoes to ripen, despite being the last of all the tomatoes to be sowed.

Had the first two today with in a sandwich with cucumber and basil.

It was fine, but not bursting with flavour, nothing to write home about.