Topic: Tomatoes

[vaca]

Thanks so much for that Rosemary - I've been after exact instructions on how to do this for a while now. Have a look at www.seedsofitaly.co.uk under 'Preserving & Culinary Equipment', the first product is a Passata Machine which is the 'mincer' you've mentioned in your post.

I remember as a child spending my summer holidays south of Naples, my parents used to rent a flat from a family who owned a house that they'd converted to 3 flats - they lived downstairs and rented the other two. Every summer they'd spend several days making their 'Passata di Pomodoro' - I helped crank the handle  :)  ...and became good friends with their three sons and ate with them every lunchtime, and 'EVERY' lunch we had pasta with their tomato sauce - I mean EVERY single day for three months... and it was incredible.  ;D ;D ;D  - only I was too young to remember the exact procedure for bottling it all up - so... thanks again :)


vaca

[Svea]

i am growing san marzano and cannot fault them. they taste very good and make excellent sauce :)
i have only had one smaller tomato of that variety that has not got shiny skin, why, i do not know!

have been making sauce either by chopping peeled toms and boiling down before bottling, or by oven roasting with splash of olive oil and garlic, then filling/pressing into bottle whilst hot.

and lots more to come on the plants!

[flowerlady]

ladies & gents

would I be correct in thinking most of you grow toms INDOORS  ???

as my outdoor toms this year were completely naff should I get organised to use small mini-greenhouse do you think? ???

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've grown tomatoes outdoors twice; the fist time they got early blight and I lost the lot. The second time, this year, I messed up good and proper, planted them too close, and didn't stake them due to overwork and illness. They didn't start ripening till this month, but now I'm getting loads. So they're worth trying, the only thing is you won't get a very long season with them. It would have been better if I could have got them in earlier, but we were still getting frosts in mid-June.

[beejay]

We grow all outdoors. Lost to blight twice but usually absolutely fine. This year has been good  tho' possibly a little late.

[vaca]

 :'( :'( got back from work today looking forward to harvesting some more toms and found all my plants had been attacked by blight  :'( :'(

oh well,  won't have to bother working out what to do with my italian plums... chutney and more chutney...  :)

...well, at least almost all my cherry tomatoes have ripened...

now should I worry about my Xmas potatoes which have started to come up? I'm growing these in two large bins in my garden? is it likely to them as well?

vaca

[Svea]

sorry to hear that, vaca :(

i also grow my toms outdoors - i havent got any indoor growing space apart from window sills in early spring :)

[Rose.mary]

Vaca-yes the machine is almost like that one but they are now run by electricity.Saves a lot of work. I bought a hand machine and it only cost 10 Euros. I haven't used it yet.
Incidentally if I had not been there Salvatore would have had to juice 100kg of tomatoes by himself, as his wife was out working. It was hard work and took us the best part of the morning, it would have taken him all day by himself.
Rosemary

[Mrs Ava]

Vaca, are your blighty toms at home or on an allotment?  If they are close to your spuds, then I reakon there is a risk of cross contamination,  If your toms are at the plot and your spuds at home, just make sure you don't come home from the plot and go out and touch your spud plants whilst wearing the same clothes as you could be carrying the blight spores on your clothes or tools.  Bordeaux mixture can be used on the foliage of the spuds, but it is only prevention, not cure!

Flowerlady, I grow my bestest toms outdoors, but I have to be ready against blight.  This year I grew them under a cover of corrigated plastic so they didn't get rained on, thus reducing the humidity levels, kept the plants trimmed and tidy to allow good air circulation, and once every couple of weeks from the end of June until mid August, I applied some bordeaux mix and have been rewarded with masses and masses of tomatos!

[vaca]

EJ - both are at home, the potatoes are in tubs. This morning before going to work I harvested all green tomatoes and have taken the plants down and placed them in a bin liner for burning later on. I'll keep my fingers crossed  :-\ would hate to see the spuds go down the same slippery road to death.

vaca