My First Time Bottling Tomatoes!
We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year due to my husband's amazing gardening skills! He planted over 20 plants and included the following varieties: Pheonix, 4th of July, Celebrity, Yellow Pear, and a large yellow variety we can't remember the name of. Haha. Our kitchen counters and table were literally overflowing with the beautiful red and yellow "fruit" and we could not eat them fast enough.
I hope you enjoy my recap on my first time bottling tomatoes and if you are a tomato bottling expert, please comment below with any tips and tricks I don't know about! If you have any questions, leave a comment below and be sure to follow me on social media!
Tips and Tricks for Bottling Tomatoes:
- Have your kids help! It's always good to teach them new skills and it will give them a sense of accomplishment.
- Have lots of ice on hand!
- Expect a big mess...but it'll be worth it when you have garden fresh tomatoes all year long!
- Place a small fan on your kitchen counter...it gets really hot standing over the boiling water!
- Buy a tomato corer like this one.
- Don't let the tomatoes boil for more than 60 seconds...if you get too much water in them they get mushy!
- After you fill your jars, take the end of a metal spoon and push the tomatoes in really well so they are smushed in tight...they will settle after they are done boiling.
- Leave a half inch of space at the top of the jar...you don't want the tomatoes filled all the way to the top.
- Work in batches...we had tons of tomatoes and it took me two days to get them all bottled.
- Check out this blog post before hand...she had a lot of good tips. I didn't realize it's not safe to eat tomatoes in tin cans either!
Check out this video slideshow I made with Adobe Spark (and subscribe to my Youtube channel if you would like!)
Tomato Bottling Supply List:
I like the wide mouth Mason jars the best because it's easier to get the tomatoes into, but the small mouth seemed to seal better so it might just be a matter of individual preference. If you have any questions about the process, don't hesitate to reach out! I'm no expert but it really only takes one session to feel like you are a bottling pro.
I'll do another blog post soon on how my husband actually gets organic tomatoes to grow in the Southern Utah desert. I'm going to have to have his help on that one because I can't take any credit for growing the tomatoes...I just help pick them, eat them, and for the first time, bottle them!
Thanks for reading,
