Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Naice.

Azira's right, vinegar is better in tomatoes. Lemon juice is better to enhance things like mushrooms.

I'd say it's your varieties that are making them too sweet, when you're making the sauce, get some tomato paste, that's usually tart as hell. It'll even it out. Next year, plan some tart varieties if it's for bottling, far easier to add sugar than take it away.

I'm not doing anything special with my sauces, it's for adding to other dishes, so I try to leave it plain. More versatile that way. I just boil up the whole tommies, push them through a sieve, and reduce it to about half (or the thickness you want), and season it properly. It's the seasoning people don't get right, and it makes all the difference. You need to taste and add salt & sugar to get it just right.

VH202, i'm here until Tuesday, then I'm off again for another two weeks. If you're free this weekend, you're welcome to come around. PM me.

Just caught up on your thread,looking really good,stunning crop of Toms and i would love to try that sauce Hmmmmm Hmmmmmm...

Ya, all my varieties are sweet. I usually core and freeze them whole. Then a min in the microwave, the skin slides off and I mash them into a pot with basil, oregano etc... The only way they do come out good is when I add paste or store bought canned. Tom season is just starting here and I have only put a few out because it's still cold. I will try some less ripe ones and look for some tart varieties. Thanks for the tips.

Hi
I really enjoyed reading about your system and learnt a lot.
Have you thought of drying the tomatoes?
Sun dried tomatoes in olive oil are great!
In Spain they cut them in half add salt cover with an insect mesh and literally dry them in the sun. Or you can use a very low oven. I have also dried them by slicing, arranging on kitchen paper and microwaving.
Flavor with Garlic Basil or Oregano or whatever.
Apples and dare I say it, Kiwis also dry well.
With apples peel core, slice .5cm and soak in slightly salty water for ten mins then dry in low oven. I arrange the rings on dowels hanging in the oven.
I have seen a gadget in the US for removing seeds. Great for ketchup.
Our favorite tomato recipe (large ones) is to scoop out all the inside then fill with creamed spinach, top with cheese and bake for 40 mins.
Regards
Titus

Can you tell that tomatoes are a favourite to grow Most people are passionate about them on other forums too.

I can vouch for anchovies in pizza sauce - a mate makes a wicked one with garlic, anchovies etc

I've dried plenty of tomatoes at work, they come out quite nice. At home, we generally use more tinned tomatoes than anything else (apart from cherry tommies in salads), and my sauce leaves the store bought ones for dead.

I've made up some nice salads with dried/slow oven bakes tomatoes at work though. The tomato, bocconcini, and baby spinach one was fantastic. I made up a simple balsamic dressing (oil, aged balsamic, mustard & seasoning, simple but beats the hell out of anything you can buy), put walnuts, pinenuts, fire roasted capsicum and whatever else I could find. Came out very nice, lots of compliments.

When I cooked down my sauce, I infused them with the whole basil leaves, lots of basil, and pulled them out before I blended everything up. So I got the flavour of the basil, without the brown basil spots through the sauce. Then I reduced it a lot, so all the flavours intensified.

The first bolognaise sauce I made with my tommy base was incredible (can't beat the classics sometimes). So much flavour, it was a perfect blend of sweetness, tart and now I've spoilt myself with bolognaise sauces, I can't go back to store bought.

I never had much success growing tomatoes in the soil. The first garden bed I built was a no dig garden bed. So it's layered manure/pea straw/blood and bones, and you layer it all up, and give it a few weeks, and it rots down into a really nice grow bed. However over a few months, the 80cm of no dig garden rotted to about 5cm of fantastic soil. And after carting in 15 trailer loads of horse manure, peas straw, then shoveling it all into the garden, I was a bit over that method.

And I didn't water regularly enough after I got my first water bill, along with the tap timers continually breaking, and occasionally coming home to an inch of water over my whole back yard. But lessons learnt.

I've actually got plans for different sauces next season. I've been buying up a stack of yellow tomatoes seeds, all the different varieties I can find. I want to make a sauce out of purely yellow tomatoes. Then reduce it down to intensify the flavour. Then dry off a stack of cherry tomatoes, and make a basil infused pasta. Should be interesting.

Sounds great. I picked up some pineapple, martino roma and san marzano roma tommy starts so I will have a mix of tangy and paste types to work with this year. The lady gave me some LIME basil starts that blows lemon basil away. I also have rosemary, thyme, oregano, wild garlic and sage growing. I get carried away with herbs.

Rairdog, try the lime/lemon basil on a ham & pineapple pizza. Will be awesome!

Being home from QLD finally, I had a go at starting my my ferrocrete waterfall and fish tanks. But it meant I needed to dig first.

I discovered the best way to dig a big arsed hole:



And after 5 hours of digging:


And some pretty shots.


And I had way too many seeds from one of my lettuce plants, so I sprinkled a few around. I'll use it as a baby lettuce leaf bed.

HAHA awesome!

Is that for a sump?

Your lettuce forest is nice - what variety is it?

Sprinkled a few did you say... very good germination rate though.

I think it's a loose leaf cos variety. And they were taken from the plant, and sprinkled straight away. So very good germination.

I'm ferrocreting my tank. But it needs time to set. So I figured I'd make two tanks. Make the first, let it set and dry, seal it, fill it and transfer the fish over. Then pull apart the second and turn that one into a ferrocrete tank.

The plan is to have two tanks, both bottom draining into a center RFF filter. And the RFF going into a far larger sump tank. And it'll all be covered in pretty river pebbles, and larger rocks.

Oh, and the return water flow will come out above the RFF, and come down a waterfall into the FT's.

Hi
Reading other threads about pest control I started thinking about complementary planting.
Now I knew that marigolds planted with tomatoes were symbiotic but after Googling I read that Basil is also really good with tomatoes!!
That has to be a match made in heaven for you
Regards Titus
PS I do think that complementary planting is the way forward with AP

Hey Colum,

is that 40mm steel that you have used here?
a little over 1200ltrs?

How are you frames holding up to the weight?

Great work by the way, cant wait to see this system in full bloom, massive.

Regards

Hi Porter.

Good eye on the steel, it's 40mm. It's been over engineered, so not even the slightest bowing in it. And it's 1200L worth of GB, 3.4m x 1.2m x 0.3m. Bloody heavy.

The first bed I made has a slight bow in it, that was 50mm galv tubing, but I didn't have enough support structure underneath it.

I like welding, it's like gluing with steel, only quicker.