Have you noticed?

It’s peak season for tomatoes!

When’s the last time you ate a tomato?

I’m hoping that your  answer is “just now”, “yesterday”, “there’s one in my lunch”, or something along the same lines!

Mid-August to mid-September is typically the peak season for tomatoes here in the Bay Area.  It’s a great time for eating fresh tomatoes, tomato soup, salsa, tomato sauce, tomatoes in salads, sandwiches, stews, etc.  If you haven’t noticed, there’s such an abundance of tomatoes that there’s no way to eat them all right now.   Maybe you’ve been wondering what to do with the extra tomatoes in your garden, or how to make the Farmers’ Market tomatoes last through the winter.

Tomato Sauce Canning Class
If so, join us and learn how to put up tomatoes for the winter when Green Fork, a project of Conexions, presents the third workshop in the Take A Bite series: Tomato Sauce Canning.  The workshop is Saturday, September 26 from 9:00am – 12:30pm.  Participants will be slicing tomatoes, making sauce, and learning how to can the sauce for the winter.  Everyone will go home ready for the winter with a jar of sauce.

Why Preserve Food?
Abundance!  Is it a problem? (I have many tomatoes and can’t eat them all now.  What do I do???)  Or an opportunity? (Cool!  Dried tomatoes! Tomato sauce for the winter, etc. !) In Permaculture terms, “the problem is an opportunity”.   When an abundance of food appears on the scene, food preservation provides the opportunity to stretch out that abundance so that it lasts all year until next year’s crop comes in.

Food during peak season is abundant, tasty, and generally less expensive in bulk than during the shoulder seasons (when it’s first coming out or at the end of production).

Ladybug Buying Club

Preserving food provides one with an appreciation of food and control over one’s own food supply.  I know where my food comes from, whether it’s from 20 feet away and has been grown in the back-yard, or if it’s from 50 miles away grown by a local farmer.

One of the farms from whom I buy large amounts of food for preserving is Mariquita Farm, one of the farms of Two Small Farms, my local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).  Mariquita Farm has a local “buying club” where on “specials days” at different neighborhood locations, anyone (you don’t need to be a CSA member) can buy an abundance of tomatoes (San Marzanos, Early Girls,  Heirloom, Beefsteak, & yellow slicers) and peppers (padrones & red pimientos).  The bulk quantities are at an incredible price because it’s peak season and you’re buying in bulk!  Here’s one opportunity to jump in on the preservation bandwagon!

Beyond Tomatoes
Food preservation techniques you learn for tomatoes can be used on other foods as well.  If you learn how to dry tomatoes, you can dry other food such as apples, pears, peaches, and persimmons.  If you learn how to can tomatoes, you can also can jams, applesauce, and more.

Join Green Fork Saturday, September 26 at the Take A Bite: Tomato Sauce Canning workshop and learn how to store abundance for the winter in your own food cupboard.