Tomato harvest

This is the first year growing in our new greenhouses and we've had a good summer with cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers and chillies. But the tomatoes are now almost finished. Last weekend we cleared out most of them, leaving just one growbag with three 'Gardeners' Delight' plants still ripening. The thing about tomatoes is that once they get going and start to ripen you often have loads ready all at once.

One of my favourite things to make with them is tomato soup.  I make a pot full and freeze it. On cold days later in the year it's a reminder of those summer days I spent picking tomatoes.

Last year when we didn't have a greenhouse on Plot 8, the tomatoes were grown in the greenhouse on  Plot10b which was Helen's old plot.  They were very slow to ripen and looking back in my allotment journal we were still picking them well into October. I finally made green tomato chutney with them, which was delicious and friends and family have been looking forward to this year's batch. They are going to be disappointed, no green tomato chutney this year.  Instead I used the same recipe but with the red tomatoes.  I hope it is as good, it took hours to cook and the kitchen smelled of vinegar for days after.

Here's the recipe:

Tomato chutney

2kg  red or green tomatoes

500g apples

500g onions

250g raisins

25g salt (I didn't use so much)

500g sugar

600ml vinegar

Spices of your choice eg. ginger, pepper, chillies 

(I used some grated root ginger and some chopped chillies)

Finely chop the tomatoes, apples and onions and place all the ingredients in a large pan. Heat gently, stir and simmer until a pulpy consistency is achieved. It took about 3 hours to reach this pulpy stage so allow plenty of time for cooking.

Jar up and seal.