I am a newbie when it comes to purchasing tomatoes. Of course I have bought a few at a time at the grocery store, but until this year I had never canned tomatoes and had no idea how to purchase larger amounts. I had heard that people had success at the farmer's markets. Our local community had a Tomato Festival at the Franklin Farmer's Market and I thought, "Okay this had to be the best place to buy good quality tomatoes." It was a yuppie fest for people willing to fork out way more than I wanted to pay. Sure the tomatoes were beautiful, but you could not find a tomato there at a reasonable price, most sold for $3-4 per lb. Yikes! So I went to Aldi's on the way home and purchased tomatoes grown in Georgia for about $1 per lb. I like supporting our community farmers, but I don't want to be robbed.
My next attempt was at a farmer's stand in Franklin near the historic City Cemetery. They sold beautiful boxes (about 25 lbs) of Amish organic tomatoes for $24. Wow, less than $1 per lb and these were beautiful. Unfortunately, the following week they had raised their prices to $28 per box.
I then tried the farmer's stand on Old Highway 96 in Franklin. They had gorgeous yellow and red Roma tomatoes for $22 a box. While that was still a better price, it was not the fantastic deals that I had read about online in the canning groups that I am a member.
My next trip was to the Farmer's Market in Nashville. The first warehouse type structure closest to the road had tomatoes for about $2 per lb. Not a deal. The second structure behind the first actually had boxes of tomatoes ranging from $12 to $16 per box and the lady was somewhat concerned for the "high" price. Amazing. So I bought an exceptional box of Roma tomatoes from Swafford Farms (TN) for $12. It was around 30 lbs which was about .40 per lb. Now that is a deal!
Hope this helps those on the lookout for tomatoes! If anyone has a great place to buy produce locally, I would love to know!
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