What To Do With My Tomato Harvest

We all know the scenario: You’ve always wanted to grow tomatoes. You’ve bought tomatoes in seed packets, sown them in plant pots and transplanted them to Levington Tomorite Grow Bags and kept your Hozelock Growbag Waterer filled with water and tomato feed. In fact, you looked after them so well that your tomato harvest has yielded more juicy, red tomatoes than you know what to do with, right?

So, what now?

What can you do with that excessive tomato harvest, when you can’t possibly eat them all now?

Don’t worry, we’re aiming to provide you with some high value ideas in this blog. Read on to find some great ideas on how to prepare and store your tomato harvest, before they get a chance to go off.

There are many ways of preparing that tomato harvest to save it for use later. Storing your fresh tomatoes before they spoil gives you a much-needed hit of tasty vitamins and minerals right into the depths of winter.

Garden tip: Ripe tomatoes can be a beacon for fruit flies. They love the prospect of feeding and laying eggs on overripe fruit. A few fruit flies can be the start of an infestation. It’s best to take action at the first sign of this common summer pest. Use the Green Protect Fruit Fly Trap to attract and trap any fruit flies that venture into your home. Trap them before they set up a new colony and cause you a real problem.

Depending on how much time and investment you want to put in, there are many ways of storing tomatoes. Below, there are some ideas. Later, we’ll concentrate on the most popular ways of preserving your tomato harvest:

• Freezing whole
• Roasting to make sauces (and freezing)
• Storing in airtight Kilner-style jars (canning)
• Sun drying

Tomatoes are sweet and slightly acidic, which can really help to add another dimension to many sauces and dishes.

Tomato Harvest Ripening Process

Once tomatoes go through the ripening process, they’re ready to enjoy. No matter the type of tomato that you’ve grown, like heirloom varieties or cherry tomatoes, you can store them for later.

Garden tip: If the weather turns, pick tomatoes to ripen indoors at room temperature. Tomatoes happily ripen off the vine, away from the tomato plant. We covered using ethylene to ripen green tomatoes in an earlier blog article: 8 top tips to grow better tomatoes.

Basic Tomato Harvest Storage – Freezing Whole

The most basic form of preserving that tomato harvest, after picking, is to rinse them with water, drain, bag and place in the freezer, whole.

Basic Tomato Harvest Sauce Recipe – Preparation Steps

To make the simple tomato sauce, you’ll need to roast the tomatoes in your oven. During the roasting process, tomatoes take on an intense, deep flavour, making them a versatile ingredient for lots of other recipes. Depending on your taste, you can add anything else you like, such as classic pairings, like: garlic, balsamic vinegar and thyme. Dried mixed Italian herbs and fresh basil also go well.

The following basic steps form the basis of most of the homemade tomato sauces you’ll ever need to make with your tomato harvest:

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Place tomatoes in your baking sheet roasting tray with optional sliced pepper, then drizzle with olive oil and flavourings (1-2 tsp of: dried Italian mixed herbs, oregano, and basil).
3. Place in the oven and allow to roast for 30-45 minutes, or until the tomatoes and pepper are soft and starting to char.
4. Remove and set aside to cool.
5. Once cooled:
   1. Carefully add the contents of the tray to a freezer bag and freeze.
   2. If you’re making a sauce, carefully empty the tomatoes into a container and use a blender to make a smooth sauce.

Simple Tomato Harvest Sauce Recipe

If you want to up your game and make the most out of your tomato harvest, use the basic tomato harvest sauce recipe preparation steps (above) then follow the tomato sauce recipe below to make a simple tomato sauce.

This simple, tasty sauce is superb to use as a pasta sauce, to mix in with pasta. You can also use it as a base to make this hearty tomato soup.

Tomato Harvest Sauce Ingredients

• 2 kg ripe tomatoes (or as many as you can fit on your baking sheet/roasting tray)
• 1-2 red or yellow peppers sliced
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2-6 garlic cloves (minced)
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
• Small handful of fresh thyme leaves
• 0.5 teaspoon chilli flakes/red pepper flakes (if you like spice)
• 1-2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Heat a splash of oil in a deep pot, then add the onion and allow to soften for a few minutes.
2. Add the garlic and sauté for a minute – being careful not to burn.
3. Add roasted tomatoes (whole or blended).
4. If using, add the sugar.
5. Turn the heat down and allow to cook for 15-20 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly.
6. At this point, you can keep the sauce rustic and chunky.
7. Use the sauce right away or freeze in Ziploc bags, or keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.
8. To make a smooth sauce, blend until as smooth as you prefer and then use, freeze or keep the tomato sauce in the fridge.

Simple But Hearty Tomato Soup Recipe

This simple tomato soup recipe is super tasty and provides at least two generous bowls full. Served fresh, this hearty soup is perfect to serve with freshly baked bread.

Garden tip: For the tomato soup recipe below, you can either use your harvested crop you used to make the simple tomato sauce above, or you can replace the roast tomatoes with canned, as in the recipe below.

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 large onion, cut into large wedges
• 2x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes (or 800g of the simple tomato sauce recipe)
• 500 ml of your preferred stock (vegetable or chicken stock)
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt, or more to taste
• Pinch of sugar

Garden tip: If you like spices, and heat, you can add a touch of spice with some smoked paprika and crushed chillies or experiment with your own mix.

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a large pan.
2. Add the onion wedges, tomatoes with their juices, sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
3. Add enough water to cover the contents.
4. Bring to a simmer, then cook, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, stiring occasionally.
5. Blend the soup, and season with pepper and a little more salt to taste.
6. Serve with warm, freshly buttered hunks of bread.

Garden tip: The soup doesn’t need to be ultra-smooth, some chunks adds texture. A hand blender makes quick work of blending, or you can use a regular blender. If you use a regular blender, it is best to blend in batches and not fill the blender as much as you usually would since the soup is so hot.

Canning Tomatoes

Canning tomatoes is the process of blanching and peeling whole tomatoes to store in sanitised jars.

To peel whole tomatoes, they need quickly blanching in freshly boiled water to split the skin. You then plunge the tomatoes in iced, cold-water to stop them cooking. You’ll then peel them and stuff the peeled produce into sterilised jars. The Jars are then covered and boiled to seal the jars and keep the contents fresh.

This process takes some time and can be messy and be a bit of a hassle. It is fairly simple and easy enough to do.

Canning tomatoes is a great idea for anyone with an excess of ripe tomatoes and the appropriate equipment. Canning your tomatoes whole, means you can preserve your summer glut and keep a supply of home-grown whole tomatoes to make fresh sauces and soups.

Sun Dried Tomatoes

There are a few different way to achieve that sun dried effect other than using the power of the sun. You can dry tomatoes:

• In the Sun
• Oven
• Dehydrator

Drying tomatoes in the sun is centuries old. And doing it is fairly easy.

Sun Drying Tomatoes

Preparation

1. Cut the tomatoes in half.
2. Place the halved tomatoes on a raised screen to allow good air circulation.
3. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt.
4. Place directly in the hot sun to dry.

Sun-drying tomatoes comes with its challenges, especially in the UK’s temperate climate. Using nature to dry your produce means you’re reliant on the local environment. This gives you less control and can mean you end up with variable results. It’s also labour-intensive and relies on you being around to move the tomatoes if it rains and overnight. Having open tomatoes outside will also attract pests, such as fruit flies, to dine and mate on your drying produce. To help against this, you can lay some cheesecloth over your tomatoes.

To gain consistent results, you need to be able to recreate the best conditions, which includes a consistent air temperature and humidity level. The following processes.

Oven Drying Tomatoes

Drying tomatoes in the oven provides you with the chance to create repeatable results. It won’t give you that free, natural process with all the wonderful variables. But, once you find a process you’re happy with, you’ll be able to do it again and again.

Oven drying gives you full control over your process, with those consistent results, all in a matter of hours.

Dehydrating Tomatoes

Drying tomatoes in the dehydrator gives you the same advantages as drying in the oven. The only real issue with using a dehydrator, is they can be noisy. Some advantages of using the dehydrator include:

• Freeing up your oven
• Not having to use your oven in the heat of summer

How Do I Store Sun-Dried Tomatoes?

To store your dried tomatoes, let them cool and place the dried tomatoes in an airtight bag or container. This can be stored in the fridge, where they’ll keep for a couple of months. If you freeze the bags, the dried tomatoes will keep longer.

Garden tip: The lower the moisture content, the longer the tomatoes keep.

If keeping dried tomatoes in the fridge, keep them dry, in a moisture-free environment. Keep an eye on them and discard any showing signs of mould.

Conclusion

Now you have some new ideas about how to use your tomato harvest glut, crack on and start being creative. You can also use canned tomatoes, whether that’s your own fresh, canned-tomatoes, or shop bought.

It’s surprising what you can do with simple ingredients. With practice, you’ll be able to impress your friends and family in no time. That tasty dish is within reach. Take your roasted tomatoes and add a smattering of fresh (or dried) basil, oregano, Italian mixed herbs and season with salt and pepper for a taste of summer all year round.

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Happy Gardening.