What To Do With All Those Cherry Tomatoes!

My favorite variety of tomato to grow is one called Sungold. It's an orange cherry tomato that is delicate and sweet with just the right balance of acid. It also bears gobs of fruit and keeps going until frost. It doesn't succumb to early blight, late blight, or not-living-right blight. It just keeps going! The skin is so thin that if we get a lot of rain or if it gets overwatered, the skin will burst. It is the most dependable and delicious tomato I have ever grown. I can't give a higher recommendation than that.

So now you're growing it or some other great-tasting cherry tomato, and you have no idea what to do with all these tomatoes. Here are some things I do. (None of them involve Ranch Dressing.)

• Eat them right off the vine. Just please make sure you are not ever, ever, EVER using pesticides on them!
• 
  Make a fresh sauce for pasta.
  Cut the tomatoes in half and put in a bowl. Add salt, pepper, garlic powder or fresh garlic, and lemon juice. Drizzle on a little olive oil if you like. I usually have a little oil from roasted garlic.
  You can also add any other herb that you like. I use basil or cilantro and thyme. Sometimes I add cumin. Use what you like.  Let it sit for at least 15 or 20 minutes in a bowl.
  Cook the pasta. (I like angel hair for this.) Drain and put on plate. Spoon the tomato mixture on top. The warmth of the pasta will slightly warm the tomatoes and will finish bringing out all those luscious flavors.  I like to add parmesan, but grated sharp cheddar is great too!
  
  
• Roast them!  Heat the oven to about 450 degrees. Wash the tomatoes and put them whole in a black skillet. Drizzle some olive oil over it and add a fair amount of salt. If you have fresh garlic cloves, peel them and put them in whole. Cook it till everything gets darker. You want some caramelization; that's where the best flavor is! The tomatoes will burst on their own. You can stir as you see fit to get browning on more side.  When it's done, you can use it over pasta or on bruschetta... I promise you will lay up in bed thinking about this stuff; it's that good! If you don't need it that day or if there is some left, just put it in a jar in the fridge. It will keep for at least a week-maybe more.

• Blister them.  Heat a skillet to medium and drizzle olive oil across the bottom. Throw in a single layer of cherry tomatoes and toss them.  Add salt and and let cook for a few minutes giving them just enough time to start to slightly brown on the bottom before tossing them again.  Add garlic powder here.  Just before you remove the tomatoes from the pan, take your spatula and sort of smash a few just enough for them to burst.  Serve over hot pasta or even on toast.  Finish by drizzling a little fresh lemon juice over the dish. 

• Dry them. You know those sun-dried tomatoes that are so expensive? You can easily make your own, and cherry tomatoes will taste better dried than paste tomatoes! Drying really concentrates the flavor. Think tomato raisins.You will need either a dehydrator, or some folks use their oven at a low, low temperature with the door propped open with a wooden spoon. I only have experience with a dehydrator.  Cut the tomatoes in half. I like to sprinkle a little bit of salt, but that's just me. Put them in single layers on dehydrator trays. Eight hours will probably be enough. You want to pull them out when they are leathery—dry but bendable but not brittle. Put them in a jar and keep in the fridge. They will last for months! My favorite ways to use them are on pizza or pasta. Some folks reconstitute them, but I'd rather just throw them on just like they are.

I love tomatoes. If you are reading this you probably do too. The number one vegetable people grow at home is tomatoes because you can't BUY one that's even comes close to one you grow at home.  

Roasted Garlic - So Easy!

You've heard of some people giving a recipe but leaving out one ingredient so the person trying to replicate it will never get it as good as the original?  I never do that.  Well, almost never.   Roasted garlic is one ingredient I often leave out of the telling.  Sometimes it just is too much trouble to explain quickly.  And often the other person's eyes will glaze over because it SOUNDS hard.  It's not hard.
Y'all THIS is my secret ingredient in the best guacamole!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Get a head of garlic.  Hold it sideways on a cutting board and using a sharp knife, cut across the top just deep enough to expose the top of each clove.  If you miss some little cloves, just go back and cut the tops off of them.

Now set the whole bulb in a skillet (it doesn't HAVE to be a skillet, but I think it's better) and drizzle a bit of olive oil over the whole thing.  Put it in the oven and start checking it at 25 minutes.  I think it may take between 30 and 45 minutes.  It is ready when the whole thing has gotten a little darker and when you squeeze a clove, it is soft.

After it cools enough for you to handle it, just turn it upside down over a dish, squeeze each little clove out of its paper packet!  This is so cool because you didn't even have to peel the cloves!  While they are still warm you can actually smash them into a pulp if you want to.  I usually slice them.  You can use whatever amount you need right now and put the rest into a small jar and cover with olive oil. You can put the whole cloves in and slice them as you need them or slice or smash or dice first.

It must be stored in the fridge where it will keep for weeks.  The olive oil will get firm when cold so when you need to use some you'll need to set it out or run warm water over it if you forget like I do.

Now you have roasted garlic ready for whatever recipe AND you have LUSCIOUS roasted garlic-flavored oil!  Use it on everything that's not sweet is what I say!

I use it on any pasta, even just pasta, roasted garlic and oil, and parmesan cheese; on pizza crusts, particularly the edges; for dipping bread; and for guacamole

This is another "little thing" that makes a big difference

How To Plant and Grow Tomatoes

Plant 'em deep!  

Pinch off any side leaves or stems and just leave the ones at the very top.  Dig the hole deep and plant it all the way up to the top leaves.  Or if the plant has gotten pretty tall, you may need to dig a trench and lay it down, fill in with dirt, and then prop up the top of the plant with a rock or dirt clod.  In just a few days it will start growing upwards toward the sun. 
The reason for planting tomatoes deep is they will form roots all along the stems and be much stronger plants!   These are the only veggies you should do this with. 

When to plant?
Please wait until the last spring frost to plant.  When is that?  Who knows!?  In much of the Southeast where I have lived, the average last frost date is April 15th.  That's an average though.  Over about twenty years when I lived in Alabama,  the last frost came after that date.  Sometimes it could be a week or two weeks before.  Talk to gardeners in your area who have experience,  do a search using the words "average last frost date" for your county or city,  and check that 7-day weather forecast.  Remember that even though we know that water freezes at 32 degrees F, we can get a frost at about 37 degrees.  I don't know why.  I wish I did.  
I am having to learn about planting times in my new home of Fort Worth, Texas.  I have taken my own advice and have learned that  it's still a gamble to plant early.  Here folks are trying to beat the summer heat and dry wind that often dooms tomato plants.  We'll see what happens, but I'm just letting you know that I'm learning and no one ever knows these things for sure!

Give Them Support
Tomato plants will do better with a cage to support them.  If you have cattle fencing wire, you can make one easily.  I always read to use concrete reinforcing wire because the holes are bigger the whole way, but you can get cattle fencing easier.  Just put the small holes at the bottom and you won't have any problem reaching in.  You can also buy ready-made cages at Lowe’s or Home Depot.  They have  a fold-up kind that looks pretty sturdy, although I haven’t used them.  Don't buy the upside down cone ones for tomatoes.  They will not hold up to big tomato vines. They do work great for peppers though.  

Tomatoes with blossom-end rot

For tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants (same family) you need to add lime and Epsom salts to the soil if you live east of the Mississippi.  This will prevent blossom-end rot.  Blossom-end rot is where the fruit turns mushy on the bottom end before it gets ripe.  It is caused by not enough calcium and magnesium or from the plant not able to USE the calcium because the soil is a little too acidic.  The lime will make the soil less acidic and add calcium (calcium carbonate).  Epsom salts isn't salt; it's magnesium.  If you already have these on hand, add a handful of lime to the planting hole and another handful to the top after you fill it in.  Add 1 handful of Epsom salts to the top and then water it all in.  If you don't have any when you plant them, be sure to add it pretty soon to the top of the soil and water it in well.  Now, a  soil test will tell you exactly what you need, but most folks won’t do that, so east of the Mississippi is a rule of thumb for these needs.  (If you live west of the Mississippi, I don’t know what you need.)

Don't let anyone smoke around your garden or touch your plants with hands that have been on cigarettes or dip without washing first.  They can transmit tobacco mosaic virus to your tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.  TMV will cause your leaves to get curled up and not thrive. 

As your plants grows a bit, cover the soil around it thick with grass-clippings (that have not been sprayed with herbicide) or hay or chopped-up leaves or shredded or torn paper (only black and white newspaper, not colored ads).  Pile it up thick.  This deep mulch will serve a few purposes.  It will keep weeds from growing, which equals no hoeing!  It will hold moisture in and it will rot and enrich your soil.  The earthworms will eat it from the soil side and will speed up this process.  Earthworms will “till” your soil when you give them enough to eat, and you will actually be able to dig in it with your hand! 

Tomato hornworm with egg sacs of parasitic wasp

Do NOT spray with pesticides.  It is bad for you and your family, and it is totally unnecessary.  The only pests to watch for are tomato hornworms, and it is best to just pick them off. (I like to put them where some lucky bird will find them.) If you see a hornworm with white sacs along its back, just move it away but don't smash it.  Those white sacs are egg sacs from parasitic wasps.  They kill hornworms and hatch into more tomato hornworm killers!

Now go plant some 'maters and dream of summer days that are soon to come!