The vegetables have been picked, the temperatures are cooling, and fall has arrived. You know you should clean up your garden for the year, but lets be real–you’re feeling the time crunch with back to school, a busy work life, or just plain being sick of your garden. While a proper garden clean up is ideal, I’m going to give you my guide to what you must do–and what you can skip, so that your garden is dealt with in record time.
There’s been two back to back overnight frosts and the 2018 gardening season is officially done as far as I’m concerned. Someday I will try and extend my season by a month, but with some unexpected health complications this summer, this is not the year. Here’s a little recap of what went well, what I learned, and what
First, let’s start with the successes. . .
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This year I had visions of a beautiful container garden filled with vegetables on my back deck. I would make it interesting by adding flowers to some of the pots and create a space that was both beautiful and edible. However, my dreams and reality did not meet. Here’s the mistakes I made and how you can learn from them.
Really quick gardening disclaimer: I garden in zone 3b in Saskatchewan, Canada, and as such, my gardening advice is best suited to the Canadian Prairies. While I try to make my gardening tips applicable to as many locations as possible, it is impossible to be 100% relevant to every single zone in North America and beyond. Thanks for understanding!
Second disclaimer: Nobody really wants to see pictures of practically dead plants. The pictures here are of my pots when they last looked good, around the mid-point of the growing season. They went downhill shortly after.
Every May I emerge from winter ready to conquer the world and plant an enormous garden, which may have included 27 tomato plants. Every September I end up silently cursing my optimism.
This year, I’ve come up with a better system to get things done while still keeping my sanity. Here’s how.
For those of you who live in warmer climates where all your tomatoes are vine ripened, you can skip this tip. Those of us in Saskatchewan and other USDA zone 2 or 3 areas have to pick most of our tomatoes green and ripen them indoors.
Set out four boxes and divide your tomatoes by colour and ripeness: green, yellow, orange, and red. This way you will be able to grab the ripest box and save precious time that you could be canning. Check your tomatoes every day or two and transfer any outliers to the correct box.
Cut your tomato processing time in half. Find out how!Click To Tweet
I cut my tomatoes in large chunks and squeeze out the seeds. You will not get every single seed out, so if you can’t stand any seeds in your tomato sauce, this is not the method for you. For roma tomatoes, I cut off the top, make a small slit, squeeze out the seeds, and put them into my slow cooker whole. Which brings me to my next point. . .
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to sit around a stove for 3 hours ensuring my sauce doesn’t burn. I also don’t have time to blanch and peel them. I’m happy to deal with the odd bit of tomato skin in my sauce.
I cut up my tomatoes about 6 hours before I know I’ll have time to deal with them again. Throw in other vegetables you want in your sauce such as onions, garlic, zucchini, carrots or squash and walk away.
Somewhere around hour 4-5 I come back and puree the sauce with a stick blender. This ensures that my super picky small child will actually eat the sauce I make.
Let your slow cooker or oven do the heavy lifting. Process your tomatoes with less effort. Click To Tweet
If a slow cooker isn’t your style, you can cut up all your veggies and roast them in the oven. Roasting adds an extra sweet caramelized flavour that I’m a huge fan of.
Put all veggies in a large roasting pan and cook at 400 degrees for at least an hour, or until some of the tops turn a bit black. Let cool, add spices, puree, and either can or freeze in containers.
We are short on freezer space here, so I try to can as many jars as I can. However, I don’t always have the time or energy, so I put my sauce in smaller containers in the freezer and call it a day. If you’re short on space, put your sauce in good quality freezer bags and freeze them flat for easier storage.
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Tomato season unfortunately seems to co-incide with back-to-school season, which in our house is a recipe for beautiful tomatoes going to waste. If you find yourself with almost no time to deal, chop tomatoes in quarters or eights and freeze in plastic bags. It’s not ideal, but you can always thaw frozen tomatoes and deal with them later.
How do you process your tomatoes? Any tips or tricks to add? Let me know in the comments what your favourite method is.
Every gardener faces a big dilemma every summer: How do you water your garden and keep it alive when you’re on holidays?
I’m sharing my five basic steps for plant care on vacation. These tips should keep your plants alive for a max of 3 days without rain and moderate temperatures. I’ll also give you suggestions for what to do if you’re gone for longer.
