Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes

What happens when you plant excess dill for the pollinators and black swallow caterpillars?

You have a boatload of dill to harvest and you make pickles.

What happens when your beautiful and loaded Roma cherry tomato plant mysteriously gets the roots eaten?   (Thank you so much  little pocket gopher.)

You dry your tears and make pickles (and compost).

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The remains of my beautiful Roma cherry tomato in the compost heap.

I have pickled green tomatoes in the past but I searched for one exclusively for green cherry tomatoes for this project.  I found the recipe here but I cut it in half.

Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes

1 c. water
1/2 c. white vinegar
1/2 T.  pickling salt
1 dill head
2 c. green cherry tomatoes
1 dried Thai chile pepper
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 t.  peppercorns
1/2 t.  celery seed

Combine water, vinegar and pickling salt in a saucepan and bring to a low boil. Stir until salt is dissolved.

Place tomatoes, dried pepper, garlic, peppercorns and celery seed in a pint jar, leaving about 1/2 inch of head room.

Pour enough brine into the jar to cover tomatoes but allowing for about 1/4 inch of space from the top of the jar.

Screw on lids and allow to cool.

These will keep in the refrigerator for about 1 month.

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28 comments to Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes

  • Taking On Magazines

    I’m sorry about your tomatoes! My zucchini plants were eaten by a deer that visits the neighborhood regularly. I think I’d prefer an above ground pest to one that attacks from beneath. We make a pickled vegetable concoction called toushou that includes green tomatoes (regular small ones, quartered). I love the stuff.

    • I will have to look up toushou! I love all things pickled. At least deer are cute….not creepy like moles and pocket gophers. 🙁

  • Dang gopher! My tomato (roots) are fine. But the 100+ degree days and 80+ degree nights will prevent any more fruit production for a while. Mean time, I’m having to harvest my tomatoes at the first sign of pink because the damn birds think I planted for them! ~ Looks like you’ve made the proverbial lemonade. That is beautiful!

    • Yep, I am harvesting at the first sign of pink too because of some unknown critter. Rabbits or squirrel I think. I’ve been spraying hot sauce on them (the tomatoes, not the critters, however, hot sauced fricasse of squirrel might be delicious.)

  • Sorry about your tomatoes, Debra. At least you got to save some for the pickles…not a total loss.

  • Oh Debra, I’m so sorry to hear about your tomatoes. Seriously, don’t those critters know we wouldn’t mind sharing a teeny bit if they would just leave some for us! The lady next door told me the squirrels have been demolishing her apricot trees taking just one bite to get down to the pit and then tossing them!

    Well, at least you will have a bit of Summer’s bounty in your pickling jars. I have never pickled anything, though I’d love to try one day. This recipe seems fairly straight forward and easy. Thanks for sharing, Debra…I just bought a squirrel cage and as soon as any varmint enters, I’ll be taking them for a ride…not to the bottom of the river but to the top of the mountain, lol…

    • Thanks, for this, Louise. AT least we have other tomato plants that they haven’t touched yet although they have taken out a Big Jim pepper and two sweet potato plants. 🙁 Don’t tell me you’ve never pickled…

  • Those darn critters! 🙂 I love this idea. And as late as I planted my cherry tomato plant, I’m sure I’ll have some green tomatoes to deal with. Pinned.

  • I’m so sorry about those awful gophers – we have them here too – but luckily, you got some (what I used to call) baby green tomato pickels! Now I want some too! They are beautiful as well!!

  • chrisscheuer

    I think you made lemons into lemonade Debra. What a great idea, most people wouldn’t have had such positive, delicious results!

  • Aaah bad luck with the gophers, how unfortunate! But delicious looking cherry tomato pickles! 😀

    Cheers
    Choc Chip Uru

  • Rodents do create a mess–we have deer in our yard that love tulips, roses etc. But it looks like you made lemonade out of lemons–or pickled cherry tomatoes! Great save! Have a warm summer.

  • I’m sorry to hear about those bad pests that did it to your garden. 🙁 But I’m glad you made something good out of this! Ill keep this recipe around for October when we usually have a bunch of green tomatoes to pick!

  • Ugh! So sorry about the critter destruction, but at least you have some delightful new pickles because of it!

  • The hardships of cultivation! So sorry for your lost tomatoes! At least you saved some for pickling!

  • We have had horn worms attacking our tomatoes and eggplant. Just got some organic pest control and it killed a horn worm, straight off! Came home yesterday and found one blackened and dead on the tomato plant. I know the feeling of frustration.

    Looks like you made the best of your situation and have some very nice looking pickled tomatoes.

  • Bummer on the tomatoes!! I hate little varmints that destroy our plants. A raccoon got in my garden bed the other night and broke some of my pepper plant. UGH! Well, what a save on the green tomatoes. Very creative turning them into pickles. Love the looks of them in that jar!