Tomatoes

We plant on average 28 plants a year normally between two and four varieties depending on what is available at the time.  This amount of plants gives us enough toms to eat fresh throughout the summer, make sauces for winter pasta and stews, make roasted tomato bread and store as chopped in the freezer for curries and soups.  Toms require regular TLC through the summer so that you can maximise the crop, this involves some pruning and tying up, regular weeding and spraying with natural insecticides.  We rarely bother with cherry toms as they are a pain in the arse to keep on top of and instead go for both round and long varieties that are juicy for sauces and great in salads.

Planting, care and maintenance

We plant our Toms somewhere around the end of May/beginning of June as seedlings.  We prefer well manured and well tilled soil.  We will dig holes for a pair of Toms with a bamboo cane for each plant. Some people prefer to wait until the plants are taller to put the bamboo in place but we like to get it all done before planting so that we don't risk trampling on the plants.  We tie the bamboo in pairs for each hole then join the rows of holes together and across to any other sets we may have planted.  We can get strong winds here and as the plants are heavy when laden with fruit we like to make things as strong as we can.

Once your bamboo is in place rough over the earth where you want to plant and make a hole with your wooden dibber as close to the size of the earth around the seeding as possible.  Poke out the seedling with a small stick and drop it in the hole up to the first pair of leaves.  Press down the soil around the plant and water in.

Harvesting

After they have finished flowering the plants will begin to yellow and die.  When they look wilted and dead we cut off the foliage at about 10cms from the ground and dump it into the compost.  If you cut them too short you may have trouble finding the plant when you come to dig up the potatoes.  Cutting off the foliage allows the skins to harden.  We normally have 8 pairs of rows so we don't cut them all down as we don't want to have to dig up too many at one time, two rows a day is good for old knackers like us.  5 days after cutting them down you can dig them up, ideally on a sunny day and first thing in the morning.  We lay them out in the sun to dry for 3 hours or so and then start work on getting them ready for storage.

Dry Storage

Any tiny ones we wash and stir fry for dinner that night.  Any duff ones get chopped and cooked in the outside pot for animals.  The good ones are brushed clean and stack in single layers in crates with newspaper in-between, 6 layers maximum.  We then store these crates in a cool dark place and put a blanket over them to make sure no light gets to them.  We check these crates every week to make sure that they aren't rotting, sprouting or going soft.  We have varying success with this depending on how hot the summer is really.  However, we can still expect to be eating fresh spuds up to Christmas on a good year.  The ones that do go a bit dodgy we prep for freezing.

Freezing

We have a number of options for our frozen spuds.  If we can save a portion of a dodgy one it will be washed and cut into wedge shapes or peeled and cut into roast potato size or even peeled and boiled for mashed potato for potato cakes or fishcakes.  Before freezing, your prepped spuds must be oil blanched and then chilled.  K will drop a basket into the deep fat fryer at 260c for 3 minutes if thinnish wedgies or 6 minutes for the thicker roasts.  They are then dumped into a plastic container and then chilled in the fridge for half an hour or until they feel cool.  They can then be bagged in portions and frozen.  Defrost before cooking.  Wedgies need about75 mins and the roasties about 90 minutes at 180c.

For potato cakes we peel the spuds, cook in boiling water for 20mins or until soft then mash them. When they are cool enough to handle we add some seasoning, a splash of tobasco and some fine chopped onion. The ratios are entirely a personal choice but too much onion may burn when you cook the cakes and too much tabasco will turn your pee pink. Mix everything together and then form them into burgers with your trusty Burger press, lay out flat on a baking sheet and freeze overnight. To cook, defrost then fry in a little oil breaking them up as you do so...awesome for breakfast.

Fish cakes are potato cakes without the tabasco and with a bit of tinned fish such as salmon, tuna or sardines mixed in until it tastes good.  Again we love these for breakfast.