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zippelk

tomatoes 101

zippelk
12 years ago

I am relatively new to gardening/canning. I am hoping someone can direct me to a source of the info I seek on tomatoes. (1) Is there a website that classifies tomato varieties based on function? My seed catalogs seem to classify them by color, which is not very useful. What varieties are best for different recipes, slicing vs saucing, canning, etc.? There seems to be a lot of variety in water content, in particular (see below). (2) In terms of canning, what is the best method of preparation? Ultimately, I want my sauces, salsas, etc. to be thick, but in my limited experience I am having more problems (e.g., boilover) canning thick liquids than thin, so do people use tomatoes with high water content to get runny sauce for easy canning and then reduce/boil it down when they un-can it for use? Or are there tricks to can thicker liquids/sauces? I grew 2 heirloom varieties this year: "big month" (http://rareseeds.com/big-month.html) is nice but a high water content and runny sauce, whereas "orange icicle" (http://rareseeds.com/orange-icicle-tomato.html) comes out of the food mill nice and thick and ready to use. thanks for any feedback. oh, one more question: is pH affected by removing skins and seeds?

cheers

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