Tantalizing Ways To Use Up Your Tomato Harvest - Royal City Nursery - Blog (2024)

However delightful the harvest season may be, sometimes the sheer volume of your harvest can be a little overwhelming, particularly when it comes to tomatoes! As vigorous growers, the average tomato plant can yield anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds of tomatoes when grown in proper conditions. While tomato sandwiches are delicious, you sometimes need to get a little creative to figure out what to do with that harvest!

What To Do With Tomatoes After Harvest

Here’s a list of five tantalizing ways to use up your tomato harvest, as well as some common questions we often hear at the garden centre in Guelph during harvest season.

Make Spaghetti Sauce

This is somewhat of a no-brainer when figuring out what to do with an abundant tomato harvest. It uses up a fairly substantial volume of tomatoes and can be frozen or canned, allowing you to enjoy the fruits of your tomato labour all winter long.

Ingredients:

• Tomatoes (roughly five to six pounds will make about a litre of sauce)
• Olive Oil
• Garlic (1 to 2 cloves per litre of sauce, minced)
• Onion (1 per litre of sauce, chopped)
• Oregano (½ to 1 tsp per litre)
• Basil (½ to 1 tsp per litre)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Bottled Lemon Juice (2 tbsp)
• Sugar (only a pinch, if needed)

Directions:

1. Start by blanching your tomatoes for one to two minutes in boiling water, remove, and rinse them in cool water. Set the tomatoes aside until they are cool enough to remove the skins, chop off the top where they attach to the stems, and then chop them in half to remove the majority of the seeds.
2. Find the biggest pot you have, saute the onions and garlic, add the rest of the ingredients, and bring it to a simmer. Now, you wait! Your tomato sauce will likely have to simmer for a few hours until it reaches your desired consistency.
3. There are two ways to preserve spaghetti sauce: freezing or canning. Freezing is a lot easier and much less complicated than canning.

Make Your Own Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Some items are undeniably better when homemade, and sun-dried tomatoes are definitely on that list. They are amazing in salads, soups, pizza, and pasta. It is possible to dry them in the sun (it’s been done for centuries!), but we recommend doing so in the oven or a dehydrator.

Simply wash and cut your tomatoes in half (or quarters if they’re really large, just try to maintain a uniform size, so they dry at roughly the same rate). Just like with the sauce, cut out the ‘core’ where the tomato was attached to the vine. Preheat your oven to 160–180 degrees Fahrenheit (140–160 if using a dehydrator) and place your tomatoes cut-side up on a parchment-lined baking tray. Sprinkle them with (minimal) salt, oregano, basil, or any other herbs you would like to add and pop them in the oven until they are pliable but not brittle or squishy.

Live Off Of Tomato Soup This Fall

All that you will need to make tomato soup is soup stock, tomatoes, onion, butter, and your desired spices. Start by sautéing your chopped-up onion in butter, add your washed and cut tomatoes, stock, and spices. Bring everything to a boil, and then simmer for roughly an hour. To get that perfect tomato soup texture, run it through an immersion blender. Freeze it, eat it fresh, or can it if you know how to do so safely.

‘When Should I Pick My Tomatoes?’ And Other Common Tomato Harvest Questions Answered

Is It Safe To Can Tomatoes At Home?

Yes, if you know how to do it properly. To safely can food, an appropriately acidic environment and proper sealing are required to avoid botulism. Check out these canning tips to get started!

When Should I Pick My Tomatoes?

Tomatoes have what is called a ‘breaker stage.’ When your tomato gets to the point that it is half green and half red, you’re good to pick it without worrying about loss of flavour or quality.

How Do You Store Tomatoes After Harvesting?

Cooler temperatures will slow the ripening process, warmer temperatures will speed it up, so it’s best to store your recently harvested tomatoes at room temperature, either in a cupboard or even in your basem*nt, but skip the fridge; tomatoes tend to lose flavour when stored that way.

Tell us your favourite way to use up a bountiful tomato harvest. We’d love to hear from you or come visit our garden centre today!

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