Tomato Mountain Farm
Tomato Mountain is a 12-acre certified organic farm located 20 miles south of Madison, Wisconsin. We focus on plants in the spring, tomatoes in the summer, and our kitchen products year round.
Our goal is to raise the highest quality certified organic crops to create a simple and consistent line of products. By paying attention to varieties, growing conditions, and the recipes/methods being developed, our goal is to make products that can't be found at any price, anywhere else.
The new whole roasted tomato puree we made this past season was a tremendous hit, and we have high hopes in the near future to be a substantial producer of this very simple, jarred, base tomato product that can be used for everything from salsa to pasta to chile. We do everything from planting the seeds of carefully selected varieties to capping the jars in our farm kitchen.
Increasingly, our energy and ideas are focused on the farm kitchen. So many amazing local farmers have come upon the scene in the last 20 years, and competition has become quite strong. For the half of the year when most fresh produce is not available locally, however, most of us have had to rely on canned products, like tomatoes, from a few thousand miles away (California). We love to grow tomatoes, but not the challenge of selling them when every other farmer in the Midwest has them comimg out of their ears.
Our goal is to preserve the best, organically produced tomatoes, harvested at the peak of ripeness. Most people think of 'canning' tomatoes as the soft older ones not suitable for eating. We don't believe this, and use only tomatoes that are good enough to eat fresh. In late October, there have been several times we composted hundreds of pounds of tomatoes simply because they were not the same quality as ones harvested in the heat of summer and early fall. We don't hide behind the label or try to hide inferior ingredients with our cooking process. The very best products result only when the best ingredients go in. This is how we approach quality and integrity.
