Here's today's harvest (I got about the same amount yesterday too but gave them to my mom since she helped fund most of our tomato plant section)
Aren't they pretty!
We've got several varieties out there. Most are normal red tomatoes (some roma-style, some beefsteak), but we've also got a couple Green Cheroke tomato plants (the yellowish-green tomato front and center) and Purple Cheroke plants (hard to see in this pic, they are just slightly purple-ish - the one in the upper left corner is one).
Many of the plants have started not looking very happy about a month ago, but they still seem to be able to give us some tomatoes.
I plan on freezing most of my tomatoes. I was going to can them, but I am a bit intimidated by the whole process plus I'm not sure I'll have time (or energy - pregnancy really sucks that out of you). Freezing is just so much simpler, and it's suppose to better preserve their nutrients. I did research yesterday on how to freeze tomatoes, and there are several ways, but the simplest is to cut out the stem scar and surrounding hard area, then freeze whole on a cookie sheet. After they're frozen you put them all in a ziplock bag and pull them out as you need them. To get the skin off, supposidly you can simply put the frozen tomato under hot running tap water and the skin is supposed to sepparate and come off. I guess we'll be seeing how it works this winter!
Obviously you really can only use frozen tomatoes for sauce and such, since freezing them gives them a mushy texture (I suppose that would be a benefit of canning). But since that's pretty much all I use canned tomatoes for anyway, I think I'll be good.
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