07/13/2026
The tomatoes are officially rolling in, and I couldn't be happier!
This is the time of year all those months of planting, pruning, watering, and waiting finally pay off. There is nothing quite like walking into the garden and coming back out with buckets full of fresh-picked tomatoes.
My favorite way to enjoy them is still an old-fashioned fresh tomato sandwich with a little mayonnaise, salt, and pepper. But after we've had our fill, it's time to start preserving the harvest.
My number one use for tomatoes is homemade tomato sauce. Every year my goal is to can 52 quarts so I have one quart for every week of the year. There's nothing better than opening a jar of summer in the middle of winter.
I also turn our harvest into homemade ketchup, BBQ sauce, salsa, and plenty of canned whole and diced tomatoes. Nothing goes to waste around here.
I always recommend canning tomatoes as fresh as possible for the best flavor and quality. But let's be honest, sometimes the garden produces faster than I can keep up! When that happens, I simply wash them, bag them, and freeze them whole until I have enough time to make a big batch of sauce. Once thawed, the skins slip right off, making processing even easier.
Growing your own tomatoes is rewarding, but preserving them means you get to enjoy that garden-fresh flavor all year long. Every jar on the pantry shelf is a little reminder that the hard work was worth it.
What do you do with most of your tomatoes? Do you make sauce, salsa, ketchup, juice, can them whole, dehydrate them, or are you like me and eat half of them before they ever make it into the kitchen?
