Bottling tomatoes

With the tomato harvest in full swing my fowlers unit has been getting a good workout. Yesterday I did 5 bottles using recycled pasta sauce jars (collected from Jerry's work colleagues) and new pop-top lids (purchased from the excellent Green Living Australia ).

I halved this variety of tomato (can't remember the name they self-seeded from last year!) and put in the jars with a couple of basil leaves, a bit of citric acid and then filled almost to the top with water. THen it's into the fowlers for about an hour. In the last pic you can sort of see that the pop-tops are in various stages of pop-ing in as the vacuum seal is forming in the jar.



I also put a couple of batches of smaller tomatoes (red fig, cherry, tommy toe) in the dehydrator overnight to make a few jars of semi-dried tomatoes in oil. Fingers crossed this year they work last year they all fermented and fizzed all over the shelves...YUCK! (and what a waste!!!)