Tomato is the most popular vegetable of this world. It is very tasty and good in cooking practices. Tomatoes are generally found in the spring season usually not in another season because at the another season there is no favorable condition for the germination, growing, flowering, fruiting and ripening of tomato. So generally we only found lots and much more of tomatoes in the tomatoes season i.e. spring if you are not doing unseasonal farming in the greenhouse, plastic house, etc. so at that time price of the tomatoes is too cheap like Rs 15, Rs 20 per kg of tomato but in another season it cost Rs 120, Rs 150 per kg of tomato. we can also restore or conserve the tomatoes to take in the refrigerator but only for 1-2 month because tomato is perishable vegetable fruit and at the season of tomato, there is a large number of tomatoes produce and due to surplus production many tons of tomatoes goes wasteful because of the large amount of product and lack of demand, market, consumer, and suitable market price. So to minimize this type of expensiveness and wastefulness of tomatoes we have to do two things

 1st is we have to do unseasonal farming in the greenhouse or adopting different traditional and modern techniques and good market, demand, security, insurance and market price should be applied.

2nd is we have to do efficient effective postharvest of the tomatoes by making their different products 

In this post, I am going to talk about how can we postharvest the tomato for a long time 1 year- 2 years. there are many methods of post-harvesting of tomatoes but here only we will talk about two methods.

Method of making sundried tomato is many and in the case of a developed country, people are use machines like dehydrating machines, oven, etc to drying or dehydrate tomato. but in the case of developing country, people must use the manual method of sun-drying due to there economic status.

Generally, there are two types of methods used to make sundried tomato in Nepal.

And these are given below

1. Drying or dehydrating fresh tomatoes after cutting them in presence of hot intense sunlight.
2. Drying or dehydrating of boiled tomatoes in presence of hot intense sunlight.

Methods:

1. Drying or dehydrating fresh tomatoes after cutting them in presence of hot intense sunlight.

Methodology:

1. Harvesting: first up all we have to pick up the mature and well-ripened tomato fruit from the farm or field.
2. Selection: After we harvested the tomatoes from the field we have to select the tomatoes depends upon different aspects like size, ripening, healthy, infected, etc, and we have kept them separate.
3. Washing and sanitize: After selecting the tomatoes with different prospects we have to wash that and make clean and also we have to sanitize them because there can be a different parasite, harmful microorganism, etc. we can sanitize them with different locally available sanitizing agent.
4. Grouping: after washing and sanitizing the tomatoes we have to keep them in one place where we can easily do our work for further process.
5. Splice or cutting: after grouping tomatoes in one place we have to splice or cut them for the drying process. These slicing and cutting method is also varied by size, condition of the tomato, if the tomato is large then we have to cut the tomato in many pieces which are enough to dry in a short period in presence of sunlight if the tomato is small in size then we can cut them in two or four pieces only.
6. Drying of cut tomatoes: after the cutting of the tomatoes them we have to take one plastic or something where we can distribute surfacly all other plastic uniformly then we have to dry it out in the presence of hot, high intensity of full sunlight. We have to dry it out until it becomes totally dry which means moisture content is very low near to zero.
7. Packaging or storage: after drying out in sun we have to collect all sundried tomatoes and start the further process for the storage. We can store it variously in solid form, powder form, a liquid form which you prefer the most. For the storage, air should be tight and moisture should not be entered in any condition.

Photo Source: Food.com

   Precautions:

1. Make sure that time of tomato harvesting of right, tomato must be healthy and well-ripened.
2. Before go to harvesting wear a mask, gloves, and clothes with cover whole body and shoes because different chemical which is applied during cultivating of tomato, microorganism, nematodes, insects, poisonous animals can harm you and your health.
3. During selecting the healthy and good quality of tomato wear gloves because some get allergy by their outer pigment.
4. During the cutting of tomato be careful about the handling of the knife because It can hurt you.
5. During the cutting of tomato make sure that the pieces of tomato are small enough to dry in fast.
6. During drying of cut tomato, you must dry it in the hot, high intensity of full sunlight and dried it until it moisture content level of very-very low i.e. near to zero.
7. Keep stay away from the water, rain.
8. During storage or packaging of dried tomato make sure that there is no way to in and out of air and moisture.
9. If stored sundried tomato got contact with air and moisture it will infect by a different type of fungi and to reduce it again you have to dry it in full sunlight until the moisture content is tends to zero.

Photo Source: DryingAllFoods

• Drying or dehydrating of boiled tomatoes in presence of hot intense sunlight.

Methodology: 

Harvesting: first up all we have to pick up the mature and well-ripened tomato fruit from the farm or field.

Selection: After we harvested the tomatoes from the field we have to select the tomatoes depends upon different aspects like size, ripening, healthy, infected, etc, and we have kept them separate.

Washing and sanitize: After selecting the tomatoes with different prospects we have to wash that and make clean and also we have to sanitize them because there can be a different parasite, harmful microorganism, etc. we can sanitize them with different locally available sanitizing agent.

Grouping: after washing and sanitizing the tomatoes we have to keep them in one place where we can easily do our work for further process. 

Boiling of tomato : after grouping all the tomatoes in one place we have to put them in container which should be suitable for heating process. So add some 1/3 part of water to the container and start heating the container by any medium, by fire, electric, gas etc but give the slow small lightly heat until the tomato becomes semi-liquid type.

Drying of boiled tomatoes: : after the boiling of the tomatoes we have to take one plastic or something where we can distribute surfacly all other plastic uniformly then we have to dry it out in the presence of hot, high intensity of full sunlight. We have to dry it out until it becomes totally dry which means moisture content is very low near to zero.

Packaging or storage: after drying out in sun we have to collect all sundried tomatoes and start the further process for the storage. We can store it variously in solid form, powder form, a liquid form which you prefer the most. For the storage, air should be tight and moisture should not be entered in any condition.

Photo Source: Scordo.com

Precautions:

1. Make sure that time of tomato harvesting of right, tomato must be healthy and well-ripened.
2. Before go to harvesting wear a mask, gloves, and clothes with cover whole body and shoes because different chemical which is applied during cultivating of tomato, microorganism, nematodes, insects, poisonous animals can harm you and your health.
3. During selecting the healthy and good quality of tomato wear gloves because some get allergy by their outer pigment.
4. During the boiling of the tomato be careful about the fire or heating material.
5. During the boiling of the tomato make sure that the heat should be given to the boiling tomato must continuous, slow and in low intensity, until it becomes semi-liquid by press it by certain things.
6. During drying of boiled tomato, you must dry it in the hot, high intensity of full sunlight and dried it until its moisture content level of very-very low i.e. near to zero.
7. During storage or packaging of dried tomato make sure that there is no way to in and out of air and moisture.
8. If stored sundried tomato got contact with air and moisture it will infect by a different type of fungi and to reduce it again you have to dry it in full sunlight until the moisture content tends to zero.