I wash them and toss them in freezer bags. I don't even bother skinning them. Of course, after that, they're only good for sauce.

Canning, freezing, drying all work well. Fresh? No way. Check out the Harvest Forum here for many discussions on preserving tomatoes by any of those three methods.

Dave

Blanching comes as close as possible to fresh. Get a pot of water boiling, toss the tomatoes, fish them out 30 seconds later (I use a colander). The skins might crack. Let them cool, put them in large ziploc bags, and freeze. Of course, you have slicing tomatoes, which are too watery to be prime preserving tomatoes. Next year plant half your tomatoes as plum tomatoes, Roma or (my favorite) San Marzano.

glib.......you don't remove your skins either? I always have, but it would be nice not to have to!
I, too, plant half Romas every year. They are very meaty and are great for freezing.
I usually dip in boiling water for 30-34 minutes, peel, cut into sections, put in ziploc bags.
Every year I say I'm going to get back to canning, but freezing is soooooo much easier.
Leif.....you could also make a bunch of spaghetti sauce or chili and freeze that.

We use a lot of tomatoes over the winter. Sometimes just as a vegetable. I can tomatoes and make tomato juice and freeze some.

To can:
I wash and rinse well, my jars. Peel and pack as many into jars as I can. No need to sterilize because of the long hot water bath. I do them whole or cut up if they are big. I whirl a few of the bigger ones in the blender until they are a chunky liquid. I pour this over the packed tomatoes, using a knife to remove any air bubbles. Then I add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and the same of sugar to pints--1 teaspoon for quarts. Then I give them a hot water bath for 35 minutes for pints--45 minutes for quarts. Screw the lids on hand tight and completely submurge the jars.

To make tomato juice: This tastes like fresh garden tomatoes not at all like the kind you buy.
Cut the stem end out and any cracks or brown spots. cut into large wedges and boil for 10 minutes stiring often so they don't stick. Put through a pulper or anything you have that will allow the juice and pulp to go through but not the seeds and skins--my friend uses a potato ricer. Some small seeds will go through but you never notice them when you are drinking it.

Bring the juice back to a boil and pour into serilized jars add sugar and salt as above and give a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

In the 25+ years I have been doing this I can count on 1 hand the number of jars that have gone bad and sometimes they are down in my canning cupboard for 2 years.

I should have said pickling salt