Well the Passata day for 2013 was a great success.  We had people turn up from the garden club (our local SGA Pod) as well as friends and family.  We managed to bottle 10 cases of bought tomatoes as well as 10 kg of home grown ones by about 2pm. It was definitely a case of many hands make light work.  The new additions to the tools helped also.  We had a new 80 litre pot and tomato scoop (see below) as well as a new industrial passata machine and bottling tub.

We couldn't wait for Saturday so Mel and I had to make a small batch on Monday night with our home grown tomatoes just to see how things would go.  We got rained on but had a great time.

We used our new hand cranked passata machine and our now 65 liter pot on a wood fire.

Passata Day 2013.

Just to let you know that the passata day for 2013 will be on Saturday March the 2nd at 9am.

Passata Day

Do you have a glut of tomatoes? Do you use a lot of canned tomatoes? Are you ready to start a new tradition?
Well passata day is for you!

Passata is an Italian tradition of preserving tomatoes in bottles in the form of sauce for the rest of the year. Typically in Australia it is done in March as this is when the tomatoes are ripe and inexpensive. Due to the relatively hot year this year the tomatoes will be ready to bottle soon.

As part of the harvest month of March I am holding a passata day for those new to the sport. We'll have passata making as well as cooking with passata to give you a few ideas.  Paul and I held a day last year and it was a great success but I ran out of passata so I hope to make even more this year!

Here's a photo of some of the garden produce we hope to preserve on the day.  Most of the tomato plants these came from self seeded from the compost of last year's passata left overs.

I hope you can make it and keep a lookout for any new posts.

Maurice