Tomato disasters and successes

If you recall, we harvested two beds – upwards of 130 pounds – of a type of meaty paste tomato called Federle.

Because the vast majority of these tomatoes were green when we harvested them just ahead of the first frost, I layered them in boxes with a banana on each layer to provide ethylene gas. This would allow them to ripen. We set these boxes on a layer of plastic (to protect the carpet) and wrapped them in mosquito netting (to keep the fruit flies out).

However I got busy during the interim while they were ripening. Among much else, I took that fast trip south to see my parents and Younger Daughter. By the time I got around to cracking open the boxes, well … let’s just say many of the tomatoes had progressed beyond ripe into rotten. Grrrr.

The top layers were in great shape.

But the farther down I went, the worse it got.

I was so mad at myself for wasting so many tomatoes. In the end, the best I could do was pluck out the tomatoes that were still usable, and put them in a tub.

As for the rest … well, we had to use towels and tubs and other emergency procedures to get those soaked and falling-apart boxes out of the house and into the yard. I was VERY glad I had put down plastic beneath the boxes to protect the carpet, which emerged unscathed.

I spent days beating myself up for this debacle. So many tomatoes, wasted!

The rotten tomatoes went into the waste pile.

I turned my attention back to the usable tomatoes. Because so many of them had been covered in mushy tomato slime, I actually washed them all.

After washing them, I re-packed the tomatoes back into the tub, but lined it with towels to absorb moisture.

Then I had to fetch down my food strainer from where it had been stored in the barn. I haven’t used the strainer in a long time – certainly not since we moved – so it was predictably filthy. I gave it a good washing.

Also – knowing I would need it – I washed a large bucket.

Then I set up the food strainer.

Part of this set-up included putting a towel on the floor beneath. I learned from experience this is critical.

Straining tomatoes is messy work.

But there’s no finer way to make a beautiful purée. Here the tomatoes are in the hopper…

…and here is the resulting purée.

Periodically I dumped the container of purée into the large bucket.

By the time all the tomatoes were processed, the kitchen was a mess. Such is life.

The next step was to bag up and freeze the purée.

I filled five gallon bags with purée, though the actual volume was probably more like four gallons.

I laid the bags of purée flat in the chest freezer until they froze, and then I stacked them more neatly.

After all was said and done, my apron was a disaster. I am brutally hard on aprons.

I laid the apron flat and sprayed it thoroughly with stain remover, then washed it, which helped a lot.

The next step in the tomato journey will be to make tomato sauce out of the purée, something I usually do in January or February. This consists of putting the purée in a large pot nested double-boiler-style into a larger pot, and cooking it down into sauce (the process usually takes about three days per batch). After it’s thick enough for my satisfaction, I’ll can it up.

So that’s a summary of my tomato disasters and successes. Let’s hope I’m a little more attentive to our unripe tomatoes next year.

Source: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2025/12/tomato-disasters-and-successes.html