3 Great Homemade Salsas

Seems everyone has too many tomatoes around here these days, so here are some more tomato recipes. 

For me, nothing beats fresh summer salsa made from homegrown tomatoes, but in the dark days of winter some home canned or frozen salsa tastes quite wonderful.

Here are 3 ways to make your own salsa, ranging from simple to complex. Any of these recipes can be eaten right away, and all can be preserved for later enjoyment. Even if you don't do home canning, a cooked salsa like any of these freezes very well.

 
SALSA 1:  Packaged Mix (makes as little as 1 pint)

Rated: Easy

There's a line of salsa mixes and other canning products called "Mrs. Wages®." The ingredients are all natural, basically a mix of dehydrated vegetables, herbs, salt, and spices. Choose the spice mix suited to your taste - Classic Salsa, Hot Salsa, Jalapeno Salsa, Verde, Habanero, etc. - and simply add chopped tomatoes and vinegar! The package says you can even use canned tomatoes from the supermarket. Boil, simmer, then eat, freeze or can. These mixes are available for small quantities, like just one pint, so you won't be overwhelmed. Or use several packages to increase the quantity.

SALSA 2: Simple Salsa (makes 6-8 pints)

Rated: Moderate

I made this salsa in a canning class conducted by our county extension service. I like the simplicity of just a few ingredients. The peppers can be roasted and peeled if you want a slightly more complex flavor, but I don't find this makes much difference. You can vary the balance of hot and sweet peppers to suit your level of heat. If you preserve this for eating in the off-season, you can add chopped fresh cilantro when you are ready to serve it.

5 lbs. tomatoes
2 lbs. chile peppers (or a mixture of hot peppers and sweet peppers, according to your taste)
1 lb. onion
1 cup vinegar
3 t salt
1/2 t pepper

Wash tomatoes. Scald 30-60 seconds in boiling water. Dip into cold water. Cut out cores. Remove skins. Chop tomatoes coarsely, put into a big kettle. Chop peppers in fine dice, wearing gloves to protect from hot peppers; add to kettle. Peel and chop onion into fine dice; add to kettle. Add remaining ingredients, cook over high heat so it boils for 20 minutes. For canning, fill prepared jars with hot mixture, leaving 1/2" headspace, and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes. For freezing, let the mixture cool then freeze in individual serving size freezer containers.



SALSA 3: Judy's Favorite Salsa for Canning (makes 16 pints)

Rated:  Complex… but worth it!

This cooked salsa is the closest I've found to my favorite fresh uncooked salsa, the recipe created by our friend Bob (sorry, he won't let me share his recipe). I like a thick, hot salsa, and that's how this comes out. It uses a lot of tomatoes and hot peppers, so it makes a large batch. (When I am going to all the work of canning, I like to do a lot at once, to make the set up worthwhile). I canned mine and ended up with 16 pints. I used lots of my kitchen aids and did the preparation of the ingredients on Day 1 (storing the uncooked tomatoes in a big kettle in the fridge, and all the other ingredients in a covered container in the fridge), then finishing with the cooking and canning on Day 2.

2-1/2 gallons of tomatoes
18 oz. (3 small cans) tomato paste

I process the tomatoes in my Roma food strainer, using the salsa screen. This separates the skins from the rich, thick sauce. Conversely, you can prepare the tomatoes by hand: scald 30-60 seconds in boiling water; dip into cold water; cut out cores; peel off skins; chop tomatoes coarsely. Put the tomatoes and tomato paste into a big kettle. Cook over high heat until reduced in volume about 1/3, at least 45 minutes. This will thicken it nicely.

Meanwhile, prepared the additional ingredients, mixing them in a large bowl. I juiced the limes with my electric juicer and I did all the chopping by pulsing individual ingredients in my food processor:
Juice of 6 limes (1 cup total)
2 c packed chopped fresh cilantro
1 large onion, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled and chopped
3 banana peppers, seeded
15 jalapeno peppers, seeding 3/4 of them (caution: wear gloves when handling hot peppers)
1 t ground cumin
1/4 c cider vinegar

When the tomatoes have cooked, add all the other ingredients. Cook 5 minutes, until boiling again. For canning, fill prepared jars with hot salsa mixture, leaving 1/2" headspace, and process in hot water bath for 20 minutes. For freezing, let the mixture cool then freeze in individual serving size freezer containers. Or refrigerate and eat some right away!

Easy Homemade Tomato Paste

 Simple ingredients, quick procedure, easy storage, and delicious! I thought it was so cool to make my own tomato paste when I found this recipe online. I followed the instructions exactly, although I am not sure about the necessity of the final low-temperature baking step. I had such wonderful results, that I quickly applied the same method to creating a fabulous marinara sauce recipe (below).


TOMATO PASTE
(makes 1/2 cup)

• 1 lb. fresh ripe tomatoes (about 3-4)
• 1/4 sweet bell pepper (green or red)
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t garlic powder

Core and quarter the tomatoes. Process all ingredients in a blender until smooth. (My Vitamix super-blender works great for this, pulverizing all the tomato seeds and skin.) Pour the liquid into a 3-qt. saucepan and bring to a boil. From the blender adding lots of air, the mix will be foamy and the foam will rise in the pot, so be prepared to stir and/or reduce the heat slightly. Let it boil for 8 minutes - halfway through the foaming will disappear.

Pour the mixture into a mesh cloth jelly bag, or line a strainer with coffee filters, and place over a bowl to collect the liquid. Strain for 30 minutes. (You can reserve the strained off liquid for soup stock or for a flavorful liquid for cooking rice.) Spoon the thick paste into a heat-proof mason jar and bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 250°. Remove from the oven and cool. Smooth the top surface with a spatula, then pour a skin of olive oil to coat the top of the tomato paste, cap the jar, and store in the refrigerator. As you use the tomato paste, recover the top with a glaze of oil and it will keep for months. Alternately, you could freeze dollops in ice cube trays, then pop them out and bag them, having them available to thaw whenever the need arises. NOTE: I doubled this recipe and the results were perfection!

I think you could use this as a basis for homemade catsup (ketchup) too, just adding a little vinegar and sweetener, maybe some dry mustard or ground cinnamon - I'll try it myself next time I grill fresh marinated whole okra!

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I've made homemade tomato sauce many times, chopping ingredients by hand or processing loads of tomatoes in my ROMA food strainer, or chopping everything in my Vitamix then low cooking it for hours to thicken the sauce. After making the tomato paste recipe above, I experimented and made the recipe below. So much faster and easier than any I've ever made before.

THICK DELICIOUS MARINARA SAUCE
makes about 1 quart

• 5 lb. fresh ripe tomatoes (12-15), cored and cut in quarters
• 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 sweet pepper, stem and seeds removed
• 2 t salt
• 2 t fennel seeds
• 2 t dry marjoram or oregano
• 1 t black pepper
• 1/4 c chopped fresh basil

Process all the ingredients in a super blender, like a VItamix, in 3 batches so you don't overfill the blender and end up with a tomato mess when the top blows off! The Vitamix will pulverize everything, making a foamy, smooth pinkish liquid.

Pour all the processed ingredients into a tall cooking pot. and bring to a boil. It will be foamy and the foam will rise in the pot, so be prepared to stir and/or reduce the heat slightly. Let it boil for 8 minutes - halfway through the foaming will disappear.

Pour the mixture into a mesh cloth jelly bag, or line a strainer with coffee filters, and place over a bowl to collect the liquid. Strain for 30 minutes. (You can reserve the strained off liquid for soup stock or for a flavorful liquid for cooking rice.)

I like it as thick as possible, and used the contents of the mesh bag for my sauce, but you might want to stir back some of the drained liquid to create the sauce consistency you prefer.

Try these recipes now while garden fresh tomatoes are available. Freeze well, so you can enjoy them all year 'round

January in the Vegetable Garden

This week we return to 10 hours of daylight in Zone 7, and my new garden seeds will be arriving tomorrow. So my thoughts are on gardening 2012! Meanwhile, I am still harvesting fresh veggies from the garden daily. Our winter continues to be mild, with regular rainfall. I actually transplanted some of those tiny celeriac seedlings from the cold frame to the garden a few days before Christmas, and they are growing fine. I bought a big ugly celeriac root at the supermarket and tried planting it too - no sign of life yet though. Earlier this month the mercury fell to about 15 degrees for two nights and we had a light snow cover; I didn't bother to cover the brussels sprouts and they survived - I harvested some, halved them, and sauteed them with onions and tamari soy sauce one day last week… they tasted excellent! I've been picking and using fennel as a raw veggie dipper with homemade dips (cut like celery stalks), as well as sliced thin in a salad with apples, toasted almonds, and my Caesar dressing. I love the fennel seeds I saved last summer too - they are a great addition, whole, to my morning granola, and I've also ground them and added to biscotti recipes. A few beets are still in the ground from last summer, probably big and woody now, and they continue to provide fresh leaves for harvest. Many wild plants are growing well this winter too; the white clover we seeded as a ground cover has established itself in a healthy patch just off the front steps, and I use the fresh leaves in our green smoothies. My crocuses have begun to flower and daffodils are several inches out of the ground, so spring is just around the corner here.

More of my gardening time is spent indoors this month, as I plan what I'll be growing. Here are the basic lessons which my 2011 garden taught me:

• Don't grow plants which attract bugs and succumb to disease

I am surrendering to some of my bug battles, and simply not planting many of the vegetables most attractive to them. This means I will not grow squash-family plants, since I got little or no harvest last year, due to squash bugs. No zucchini, no butternut squash, no melons. I will try one new heirloom "pumpkin" called Cushaw (which is an edible winter squash) which is described as resistant to squash bugs. I am also planning to grow a gherkin instead of cucumbers, for fresh eating. I am not planting calendula, which is a very pretty edible and medicinal "pot marigold" - even the ones which reseeded themselves in late fall grew full of little bug holes in the leaves. The amaranth I tried to grow also succumbed to bug attacks, so that's off my grow list too, as well as oriental greens such as chinese cabbage, tat soi, pak choy and others I've tried. I now know that fall/winter is the best time for my cabbage family favorites, like brussels sprouts, kale, and collard greens, and, fortunately, their pests are not around in the cooler seasons, so that's when I will grow them from now on.

A solution to tomato blight still escapes me, so here is the 2012 tomato plan:

1. Plant "blight resistant" varieties only (I've found and purchased seeds for two heirloom varieties, Legend and Old Brooks Red)
2. Plant the tomato plants outside the vegetable garden this year
3. Try ground cinnamon on the ground around the plants as an anti-fungal (a tip from gardener friend John)
4. Don't start the tomatoes outdoors as early - makes them more susceptible to "early" blight
5. Clean all the tomato cages and garden tools, so fungus residue from last year is destroyed

•  Don't grow plants with little yield

The only snap beans I intend to grow are my favorite Blue Lake Bush beans. I planted yellow wax beans at the same time, and the yellow beans took forever to mature, with very sparse production. Meantime I was harvesting the green beans continually, and the Blue Lakes are great raw, cooked and frozen. The "bush" nature of this heirloom means it doesn't need trellising, since the plants only grow about 18-24" tall and stand upright on their own.
 

• Don't grow plants which take up too much space, when smaller comparable varieties taste as good

The Thai "long beans" were an interesting novelty, and tasted ok, but their long vines overtook and spilled out of one corner of the garden. Yes, I only needed about 2 beans to make a side dish for two, but they took a long time to mature. And the flowers attracted too many little biting bees. Fortunately, I used up the whole envelope of seeds.

• Grow plants with a longer harvesting season

I was disappointed with my sweet peppers last summer - even though I started the plants very early and grew one in a red plastic Kozy Koat, I didn't start harvesting any for a long long time. So this year I'm growing some described as early, and also described as "dwarf" which should result in quicker harvesting.

• Don't grow too many of one vegetable

If I grow any jalapenos or eggplants this year, I know that one plant of each is enough. I have a large supply of dried and powdered jalapenos, so I only need some to use fresh, in salsa and other dishes. I prefer eggplant used fresh also, and one eggplant at a time is all I need to harvest; one plant will give me a supply over many weeks. I will again limit my planting of basil, since I still have lots of frozen pesto. I am going to try "lime basil" as well as a large-leaf variety.

• Grow more edible greens in the hottest part of the growing season

Since we've adopted a routine of daily green smoothies, I've loved having cool weather greens to harvest. Now I want to be sure to have a variety of greens to harvest in warm weather, when spinach and many lettuces will not grow well. The "heat tolerant" edible greens I look forward to planting this year include: two variaties of edible Japanese chrysanthemums; leaves of black garbanzo beans (I can harvest the pods and beans too); two spinach-tasting plants which are not true spinaches: "strawberry spinach" which is related to lamb's quarters, and "red malabar spinach" which is a heat loving vine of greenery; and a bronze lettuce. Some of these are for fresh and cooked recipes - you'll be hearing more about how they taste later this year.

• Try new plants

I am adding okra to my garden this year. I've ordered seeds for a dwarf variety - only 3 feet tall! As you can tell, this is normally a very tall plant. It grows well here in the south, seemingly with no pests or diseases, and I've developed a taste for it. My friends Bill and Julie grill the whole pods (with a little coating of oil) until crunchy and eat them like french fries, and they are yummy this way. I am also planting more herbs, including lovage (celery flavor), stevia (so I can dry the leaves again, for a great natural sweetener), shiso (a red leaf, used to color pickled Japanese ginger), dock, and cilantro (a hot-weather cilantro).

Start planning your garden for 2012, even if it's just a pot of herbs on your porch!

September in the Vegetable Garden

My September garden looks empty compared with previous months, but it's a time of transition. I have pulled up plants which have stopped producing and I'm busy nourishing the soil with composted manure and lime for my fall plantings. The weather turned a bit cooler (highs in the low 80s) after we got about 8" of rain from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee, and the soil was nicely loosened up by all the moisture so it's been easy to dig. Last week I stopped at my favorite fruit market to buy fresh produce (they have a ripe banana bin for 33¢/lb so I stock up and freeze them for smoothies) and I was delighted and surprised to find seedlings for many cool weather crops. Even though I'll plant seeds for many of the same crops, the 5" tall seedlings I purchased will give me a headstart. It's hard to see the small plants against the red clay soil in the photo above, but here's an update:

1. One BUTTERNUT SQUASH plant has survived attacks from squash bugs and I am hoping there is time in its growing season for some to mature. For the past 2 years I've harvested about 25 butternut squashes from my garden, and they stored well in my basement until I used them all in about 9 months. I'll surely not get many this year, but I'd love a few!
2. Both JALAPENOS are producing profusely (the second one is in the red Kozy Koat). The plants were so heavily laden with maturing peppers that they leaned over in the last windy storm. Now each one is in one of my largest tomato cages, anchored down with rebar. Remember, jalapeno and sweet peppers are not ripe in the green stage, even though that's how they are sold; let the jalapenos turn red/black, and bell peppers turn red (or purple, yellow, orange, depending on the variety). If you look at my Facebook page, you'll see my photo of a big bowl of red jalapenos I harvested recently. I dehydrated them and ground them into hot powder.
3. The grasshopper raids on my SWEET POTATO bed seemed to have stopped and I am looking forward to digging lots, probably in October.
4. I bought and planted a 4-pack of ROMAINE lettuce, planted on the edge of the garden so I can easily harvest a few leaves at a time.
5. I pulled out the THAI LONG BEANS, since they were taking over everything. They were sold as a "bush" variety, but grew as long trailing vines for me. I got a decent harvest, and they are long and tasty when cooked, plus growing beans adds nitrogen to the soil they are in. But I am once again convinced that blue lake bush beans are my favorite green beans to grow - short plants, heavy yields, great taste, freeze well, and I like how they taste raw. In place of the long been plants, the CHRYSANTHEMUM babies, MARIGOLDS, FENNEL, and HOLY BASIL, which all were being covered over by the vines, are now happy. Every one of the 30 mum cuttings I planted last spring rooted, and the continuous pinching back now finds them loaded with flower buds, just in time for fall flowering. I need to move some into pots and other garden areas soon! I cut back the fennel plants after harvesting loads of seeds, and new young plants are growing from the root. I'm sure some of those seeds I missed will start new plants there too, and I'll be harvesting green fronds this fall.
6. The red plastic mulch where the tomatoes had grown is now removed, up to this sprawling CANTALOUPE vine. Lots of flowers on it, but I haven't seen any fruit form, so it might have been planted too late. This plant hasn't been bothered by squash bugs … maybe it's due to the red mulch?
7. I've planted nine seedlings of KALE here, and I'll be starting kale seeds elsewhere in the garden, as well as setting out seedlings I started indoors. Many fall (or early spring) seeds will not germinate in soil above 70 degrees, so I'm waiting for cooler temps to plant seeds directly in the garden so I won't waste seeds, as I have in the past due to my ignorance.
8. I tried growing BRUSSELS SPROUTS unsuccessfully last spring; the weather warmed and the "sprouts" flowered right away. I knew it was a fall crop, but I tried anyway. Now I've planted 6 purchased seedlings and I will transplant the smaller seedlings which I started indoors last month when they get a bit stronger. I am looking for success this time!
9. I've never grow COLLARDS, but I bought seedlings and planted them here. I will try them in my green smoothies as well as in many cooked recipes. The more veggies I eat, the more I like. Also in this area of the garden are small PARSLEY plants I purchased. Parsley is one of the only plants I have discovered which grows nearly year round in my garden, and it's yummy and nutritious. I love to make tabouli salad, use it in green smoothies, and use it as an herb in salads, sautes and soups.

   I have pulled out all but two TOMATO plants, after they succumbed to blight. I've already purchased two blight-resistant tomato seed varieties for next year, "Old Brooks" and "Legend". I have searched, unsuccessfully, for organic ways to rid my soil of the fungus which causes blight (the same blight which caused the Irish potato famine in the late 1800s). What's a garden without fresh tomatoes?
   The EGGPLANTS have also been under attack by grasshoppers, so I've had a lull in my harvest. Each plant has a couple of maturing fruit, so I am looking forward to making more Eggplant Parmesan with my new favorite recipe.
   One of my photos is a bit gross, but shows a TOMATO HORNWORM. When I discovered this one I was happy to see it covered with a natural parasite. The "braconid" wasp lays eggs on the hornworm and the larvae feed on the inside of the hornworm until the wasp is ready to "pupate" into a cocoon. The white, rice-shaped protrusions on the green hornworm are the cocoons. The wasps will kill the hornworms when they emerge and will seek others to parasitize, so I don't squish the hornworms when I find them in this state.
   The LEMON GRASS plant is enormous, and the lemon flavor is the strongest of any lemony herb I've grown. I hope it will survive the winter here.
   One CASABA melon plant is growing well, and I've warded off the attacking bugs with dustings of diatomaceous earth and sprayings of diluted kaolin clay. One melon has formed which is about 6" in diameter, but still green. I am hoping it will ripen to golden without being eaten by any critters except me!
   Some of my chioggia BEETS which had overwintered from last year grew flower stalks. I let them go to seed; some seedlings are starting where the plant dropped them and I have also spread some seeds which I harvested. In addition, on the south edge of the garden I've planted seeds for another variety of beets called "Bulls Blood" whose red leaves are recommended as colorful and good raw for salads.
   I've planted 100 seeds of a CARROT variety called "little fingers." I've also planted SPINACH seeds after using cold stratification to help them germinate better. I'll be planting lots more spinach - we love it, and it's one plant which grows here continuously all winter.

   I was happy to find some ONION SETS, more rarely sold in the fall than in the spring, so I'll be setting them out this weekend. It's about time to plant GARLIC also, and I have some heads left from my own harvest, which I'll divide and plant each clove about 3" deep and 5" apart.
   'Still harvesting lots of Thai BASIL to use fresh and to give to friends; there's lots of pesto in the freezer from last year, so no need to make more.

   I've transplanted the slow growing CELERIAC seedlings I started into larger pots. Only 7 plants germinated They are puny, and still in the basement window until large enough to go in the garden. My experiment with CELERY failed, due to the very hot weather, but I'll try it again under different conditions.

Don't stop gardening if you are in Zone 7 like me. The season is just beginning!

July in the Vegetable Garden

July has brought successes and failures in my veggie garden. The sun is strong, the temperature is very hot and the humidity is high, so I try to be out early when I need to do some garden work. Rain has been fairly regular, most often in heavy downpours. Despite all this, I've been eating, freezing, canning, and dehydrating my harvests, and the vegetable garden is free of weeds and looking good. (Can't say the same about some of my flower gardens, unfortunately!) Here are the details:

1. SWEET POTATOES - My plants are still surviving attacks by leaf-eaters - probably grasshoppers, as reported early. Leaves grow back, pests come again, and the cycle repeats. I don't think this is harming the development of the sweet potatoes themselves, since the abundant green leaves can be harvested and cooked like spinach.
2. EGGPLANTS - I took off the protective covers, and the leaves looked better than if I hadn't protected them, although some flea damage is still evident. Purple flowers have now formed into glossy eggplants and I picked the first one today. Anxious to try a new eggplant parmesan recipe from my sister Jean tonight!
3. LEEKS - Growing well, while being fully ignored.
4. BEANS - I harvested loads of delicious Blue Lake Bush green beans, and pulled up all the plants last week. The yellow beans, planted as seeds at the same time, are only just flowering now, but the plants are healthy. Overflowing the north side of the garden is a bed of Thai Suranaree "Long Beans", now in the flower stage. They were described in the catalog as "bush" but seem to be growing in long vines, so I am letting them trail. My beans need constant attention this year, to keep away whatever eats little holes in the leaves and beans. I spray with Garlic Barrier and keep scattering marigold petals over the beds. So far, so good. I froze 12 bags of green beans and I've started another small crop which will be great to eat fresh next month.
5. FENNEL - I over-wintered fennel plants and now I have a huge flourish of flower heads, which I am letting mature so I can gather the licorice-flavored seeds. I'll have enough to supply an Italian sausage factory! The seeds are good for digestion.
6. TOMATOES - I am now deep in battle with tomato blight, spread by a fungus in the soil. All the organic measures I have employeed to avoid it have only delayed the inevitable. I've already removed two of the plants, and three more are fighting blight. I've got some cherry tomato plants growing from my friend Sherry's seedlings, and they are healthier so far. I picked 13 beautiful half-pound tomatoes today, and in the last month I have harvested enough tomatoes to make lots of salsa (fresh, frozen, and canned) and salads, as well as eating them warm from the garden, like biting an apple. I plan to spoon a homemade bruschetta over the eggplant for dinner this evening. The white line points to a row where I've covered the soil with a garden weed-barrier cloth and transplanted 3 new tomato seedlings, so I hope to get a late crop, and I wish it to be blight-free!
7. CUCUMBER - One cucumber plant succumbed to "wilt" which is spread by the cucumber beetle, a bug about 1/4" long with yellow and black stripes or dots. You'll see the leaves begin to wilt, one by one (see photo to the right). I delayed the damage by cutting off the bad leaves, but eventually it killed the plant. My other cuc plant, a different variety, is doing ok in comparison. I've planted seeds to start another plant.
8. PEPPERS - In the collage of photos above, you can see the jalapeno plant which has been in the red Kozy Koat since I planted it last spring... it loves the heat and is loaded with peppers, with the plant growing tall above the red jacket. I've also picked a couple of sweet pimento peppers, but the sweet "Chinese Giant" variety (the tall one I've pointed to in the photo of the whole garden) hasn't formed any peppers yet. Funny thing, a friend to whom I gave one of these seedlings reports picking peppers already.
9. MELONS & SQUASHES - I've started my late crop of cantaloupe - one here where I removed a tomato plant - as well as casaba melon and zucchini, next to the cold frame. I've put in 2 butternut squash plants also. I am hoping these late plantings are beyond the season for squash bugs, and our growing season is long, so I should have plenty of time for the fruits to mature.

In other growing news, I continue to plant successive rows of carrots, which I really like because they are content waiting underground until I decide to harvest a few for fresh eating - unlike other crops which need immediate picking when ripe. I'm still digging up beets, as needed, and some I had over-wintered are sending up flower stalks. I transplanted a few beets which I dug that were tiny, and some have re-rooted for a late harvest. Onions seedlings I planted last month are providing me with scallions while the bulbs form and grow. The Little Gem Lettuce started sending up flower stalks, as the leaves became too bitter to use. I'm letting it go to seed, since it's the only lettuce in the garden now; the seeds will not have been crosspollinated with another variety, so I can save them for future plantings. I've not been successful starting lettuce lately, even varieties described as heat tolerant. I even resorted to buying romaine last week, to have a big salad with all the other garden goodies. The flat leaf and curly parsley, as well as the Thai basil, are big bushy plants now, which do best with frequent harvesting by cutting off the plant tops. I picked enough parsley to dry some last week.

I found loads of ripe grapes on my two concord grapevines last week, and devoured a few handfuls. When I anxiously went to harvest a bucketful today I discovered some critter wiped out the entire crop (raccoon? deer?). I was so disappointed, after my careful pruning last February, fighting off a wormy thing in the spring, and saving the vines from Japanese beetles recently. I'll need to correct my timing next year. My garden education continues, and I hope you learn something from my experiences!

Tabouli, Fresh from the Garden

I love to make this salad / appetizer when the tomatoes, scallions, and herbs are fresh from my garden. Tabouli (aka tabbouli, tabouleh, tabbouleh) is a traditional Middle Eastern salad. Bulgur is a quick-cooking version of whole wheat kernels which have been soaked, boiled, dried, and cracked after the bran is removed. For a whole grain variation, I sometime use 2-1/2 cups of cooked quinoa in place of the bulgur.

• 1 c bulgur wheat
• 1 t salt
• 1-1/4 c boiling water

Mix the bulgur and salt in a heat-proof bowl. Pour the boiling water on top and stir. Cover loosely with a towel and let stand for 30 minutes. Drain if necessary.

• 1 c chopped parsley, packed
• 1/2 c chopped scallions
• 2 T chopped fresh mint
• 1 c peeled tomato
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1/4 c fresh lemon juice
• salt & pepper to taste 

Mix the above ingredients with the bulgur and chill until serving time. Traditionally served with pita bread, and Scoops work well too.

June in the Vegetable Garden

June has seen many changes to the vegetable garden. We've had about 1" of rain in the last week, after nearly 8 weeks of dry hot weather. I resorted to watering with the sprinkler, which you can see outside the corner of the garden. On the longest day of the year, June 21st, our area officially got 12 hours and 34 minutes of daylight, with sunset at 8:56pm. Here's the garden update:

1. SWEET POTATOES - I planted 11 sweet potato plants, half as many as last year: two which I grew from last year's potatoes (my other efforts failed) and a 9-pack of "slips" I bought,  all "Beauregard," a dependable variety for our area, and the most common supermarket sweet potato variety. I planted where the edible pea pods had been, after they had stopped producing in late May. About 2 weeks ago I noticed the sweet potato leaves were being eaten, and, when I sprayed my Garlic Barrier on them, I saw grasshoppers jumping away. I've never had a grasshopper problem, but I've heard they can devour the garden. In addition to spraying, I've also been scattering cut-up garlic greens around the plants and this seems to have solved the problem.
2. EGGPLANTS - I bought 2 mesh laundry hampers and turned them upside down over the wire cage on each eggplant to help protect the plants from the bug which eats the young tender leaves. I used wicket-type garden stakes to hold the handles of the hampers in the soil. It's helping so far. I'll have to remove the coverings when the plants flower, so the bees can pollinate. As the season progresses last year, the bugs became less of a problem and the plants flourished, so perhaps I can go into flowering with healthier plants this year. These laundry hampers do not have netting on the top, but rain or sprinkler spray gets in on all sides. They fold down flat for easy storage too.
3. JALAPENO - I kept one jalapeno plant in the red Kozy Koat and it already has pods! Couldn't resist planting a second seedling I had started, but there is a noticeable difference in the size of the two plants.
4. MELON - One "casaba" melon is growing well and has a green fruit about 6" big already. I keep checking the plant for insects which attack squash family plants (see photo and zucchini info).
5. LEEKS - Most of the transplanted leeks didn't survive, but I'll still have plenty. Don't think I'll try them again though.
6. CUCUMBERS - My attempt to grow the cucumber plants in vertical cages is going well. They send out tendrils, and I usually just have to coax them to grab and wrap around the cage wire. The fruit is clean and perfectly shaped. I've been picking both varieties, one pickling size and the other a 6-8" salad cucumber. I keep watching the undersides of the leaves for the brown eggs of the squash bug (see photo), and discard any leaves with eggs.
7. TOMATOES - The photo shows the growth of the tomato plants in the past month, but I nearly lost them to an attack by big fat healthy tomato hornworms. The earliest plant I had put in the garden, which had looked gorgeously healthy just one day earlier, was totally defoliated. The other 5 plants each has one or more worms eating away. Fortunately, I caught them right away (it pays to visit your garden daily) and successfully treated with "Dipel," an organic biological insecticide for leaf-eating worms and caterpillars ("bacillus thuringiensis"). I dug up the defoliated tomato and replaced it with one of 3 cherry tomato plants a friend gave me, which I had planted in the cold frame. I've also kept the bottom 10" of the tomato plants trimmed to the center stem, which seems to be helping me avoid tomato blight, which is a fungus spread from the soil to the lower leaves. When I see a leaf with yellow spotting I immediately pick it off and discard. With all this effort, I've now been picking juicy red tomatoes for 3 weeks from the Riessentraube and the Al Kuffa heirloom varieties. I'm keeping a close eye out for pests.
8. BEANS - My favorite variety of green beans is Blue Lake. I plant the "bush" version vs. "pole" beans, which grow only about 12" tall and don't need trellising. Blue Lake tastes great and freezes well. I planted marigolds around the beans and keep breaking up the spent marigold flower heads on top of the bean plants, to deter an invisible insect which eats holes in the bean leaves, and potentially, in the beans. L:sat year the bugs ruined my crop. I've picked just a couple of ripe beans in the last couple of days and eaten them raw, and I'll have lots to harvest for dinner starting in a few days. I've also started a small bed of Golden Wax bush beans and a long bean from Thailand.
9. GARLIC - Before we got last week's rain I harvested about 2 dozen garlic heads. Garlic is ready to dig up when the green tops turn tan and dry. It's best to dig them when they are not wet. I rinsed them off right away, which is not recommended, but our clay soil is either like peanut butter when wet or like concrete when dry. Then I dried them in the sun for a few hot dry days before moving them onto newspapers in the shade of the porch to dry for a few weeks. This prepares them for storing.

Also in the garden...

CARROTS - I've finally been harvesting carrots and they are delicious. I like that it's a crop I can leave in the ground, just pulling what I want to use immediately. I've decided I have the patience to grow them, and I've continued to do more plantings from seeds.

BEETS - We ate beet greens initially, and now I've been roasting the pink and white zebra striped Chioggia beets. I'm proud to say I successfully grew them from seeds I harvested from my own plants in their 2nd year. The size of the beet root seems more dependent upon how much room you allow between plants than on how long they are in the ground.

ZUCCHINI - Pulled up the one zucchini plant which had quickly gone from lush and healthy to wilted and sickly. I think it suffered from a squash vine borer. I'll try another plant again in July.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS - I also had to dig up the brussels sprouts. Just as the little Barbie-doll size cabbages began to form on the stem, the leaves unfolded immediately. This is due to our hot weather. I'll try growing it again in the fall, which is what is recommended for my zone.

LETTUCE - We ate the last of the romaine and Little Gem Lettuce. So far I haven't been able to get any of my heat-tolerant varieties of lettuce to germinate well. :-(

BASIL - With lots of pesto still in the freezer from last year, I only put in 4 Thai basil plants, which have a really strong flavor. This way I have some to pick fresh, which I love in a Salad Caprese, with tomatoes and mozzarella.

FENNEL - I moved small fennel plants which had over-wintered and now they are flowering. I will save the seeds which follow the flower, a licorice taste used in Italian cooking, and I've been slicing up the stems and adding to roasting vegetables.

PARSLEY - Both curly and flatleaf parsley plants I started from seed are growing well. This week I picked lots and made tabouli, and I'll share my recipe on this blog soon.

POPPIES - In another garden bed I am growing "Breadseed Poppies" and the flower is an old-fashioned purple shade. I grow red poppies and the seeds they produce are tiny, so I am hopeful that this variety will be larger and suitable for me to use in cooking.

GARDEN HUCKLEBERRIES - My two garden huckleberry plants have suffered from bug-eaten leaves since I first set the seedlings out, but this hasn't hampered the production of flowers and berries. I picked a cup full one day recently, put them in a saucepan with a small amount of honey and some cornstarch dissolved in blueberry juice, to thicken as it cooked. I mixed the cooled sauce into plain yogurt and it tasted great. The raw berries sort of taste like blueberries but with a slightly bitter bite, but were great when cooked.

STRAWBERRIES - My strawberries ended production in late May, and I dug up approximately 12 dozen plants from the big mass I had left to grow at the west end of the strawberry border. I am trying to keep the baby plants clipped off the established bed, but will allow some to root later in the summer for more friends who want to start their own bed. Let me know if you want any.
I removed the coldframe covers, and the frame itself is permanently attached to the garden corner. Two little cherry tomato plants are all that is growing inside now.

Happy gardening!

Lessons from my Garden

I've bought my new seeds, started some seedlings, and I'm reviewing last year's garden successes and failures while planning the 2011 garden. Here are some things I learned:

Tomato plant growing in the cold frame.

• Onions: Even though I "cured" my harvested onions as prescribed, I found most either sprouted or rotted in storage. I had been more successful in past years, so perhaps our growing season was too wet. Fortunately, I harvested so many at once that I also dehydrated onions. This proves to be a great option for me, since the dehydrated onions can be used for dips, soups, and other recipes. To dehydrate I peeled the onions then quartered them. I pulsed them very briefly in my food processor, just to get them chopped. (Processing them too long will turn them to onion mush.) Beware of the fumes when you take of the lid! I did all this on the porch so the house wouldn't fill with the onion fragrance. Then I spread the chopped onions in a thin layer on parchment sheets on my electric dehydrator trays. I dried them until they were brittle and golden, then packed what I wouldn't be using right away in a vacuum sealed mason jar.
• Tomatoes: I grew several varieties of tomatoes, and I'll try others next season. The Brandywines had a fabulous flavor, but they crack even if you pick them early and ripen indoors. I learned I prefer a smaller tomato, and I weighed some to determine 7 to 8 oz. is a perfect size salad tomato for me. I also grew a hybrid called "Jelly Bean" and they were tiny and the sweetest I ever tasted. I am leaning away from hybrids, so when I've used all those seeds I won't repurchase them. Late in the season I grew "Amish Paste." They were larger than Romas, very low in seeds, meaty, and very flavorful… worth repeating. They are also "indeterminate" which means they fruit continuously during the season, vs. "determinate" like Romas, which are compact plants but ripen their fruit over a shorter time period then stop setting new fruit. Also regarding tomatoes, many gardeners in my area had "tomato blight". If you know any organic solutions, please let me know.
• Winter Squashes: My harvest was limited, due to an infestation of squash bugs, but I've verified that Waltham Butternut Squashes are all I need to plant in this category. They store in my basement for nearly a year, they can be substituted in any recipe for pumpkin, they are good producers, and they taste great. The white with jagged green stripes acorn-type which I planted turned cream with orange stripes and were gorgeous, but disappointing in the taste test. I think planting the Butternut (and its cousin Cantaloupe) a bit later in the season might help miss the cycle of squash bugs, and our season is long enough to allow me to do that.
• Eggplants: I planted two varieties, and the heirloom "Black Beauty" wins out over the long skinny "Early Longs". They had better taste and were easier to cook with. I continue to be plagued with flea beetles, which eat away at the young eggplant foliage, but toward the end of summer they had left and the plants produced vigorously. So my solution in 2011 will be to start my eggplants later. 
• Beans: All my snap beans suffered from bug bites on the leaves and beans, so I barely got enough to eat fresh. In 2011 I am returning to my favorite bush varieties, Blue Lake Bush and Golden Wax. Both are stringless, taste great fresh (I eat them raw!), and freeze well. Hopefully I can manage the bugs.
• Strawberries: To keep down weeds in my "June-bearing" strawberry bed, I had planted them in two staggered rows in black landscape fabric, and covered that with a layer of straw. Big no-no. Perhaps this might have worked if we had less rain, but the result was that after I harvested a good crop of berries a fungus or mildew developed under the straw and killed the plants. Fortunately, many at the end of the patch had sent out babies that I was too busy to snip off, and I let all the runners grow freely into the other sections of the vegetable garden. By the end of summer, I dug up enough new strawberry plants to replant the original bed (with no mulch this time), planted two new beds (in case the original bed retained any fungus), and had enough left to share with a friend.
• Garlic & Basil: 'Can't have too much garlic, but I can have too much basil! My garlic harvest has stored very well and should hold me through the next harvest, around July. But 20 basil plants supplied me with too much, fresh and frozen. I think I'll still have some in the freezer well beyond next summer, so I'll try to limit myself to just a couple of plants this year, just for fresh use.
• Experiment! Just to see what would happen, I planted some of the mung beans I use for growing sprouts, and two plants grew well and produced a little crop! This year I plan to grow Huckleberries, a melon which will store for months in the basement, calendula flowers (edible and dried for an ingredient in lotions and salves), and new varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm also going to try some different growing methods, like trellising my cucumbers so they grow up off the ground.



Black Beauty Eggplant, ready to pick.

• Cold Frame: I purchased an Austrian-made Juwel 1000 cold frame last February, and it was a great addition to my garden. The assembly instructions were in German, but my handy husband managed to figure out how it went together from the diagrams. We positioned it in one corner of our raised bed vegetable garden. I used it for numerous purposes:  hardening-off indoor seedlings before setting in the open garden, rooting cuttings from chrysanthemums and other plants, growing my second crop of tomato seedlings, starting fall seedlings, and, now that it's winter, growing lettuce and spinach plants under protection. Temperatures have fallen below 10 degrees F many times already, and several inches of snow have covered the top at times, but the lettuce and spinach plants look healthy and happy inside!

Like fellow gardeners, I am anxious for warmer weather and getting my hands dirty again soon!

Tomato Season!

I haven't done much posting to this blog lately since my discretionary time has largely been absorbed by gardening and all its related activities: harvesting, cooking, freezing, preserving, drying. The bounty from our vegetable and herb gardens, as well as from our fruit trees and berry bushes, has been great this year.

I decided to grow a lot of "roma" paste tomatoes so I could do some canning this year, as well as having plenty for fresh salsa. I've learned that it's not worth all the work of canning unless I have a big quantity to do at once. After reviewing recipes, I decided to "put up" marinara sauce instead of just canning whole tomatoes. Canning whole tomatoes called for boiling-blanching-peeling, and I figured that would be nearly as much work as making the sauce! I had purchased a food mill (Roma brand) two years ago and I've used it for wonderful tomato juice, apple sauce, pear sauce, grape juice, salsa, and other great foods. This year, I am using it for the tomato sauce and it has made my work so much easier... with delicious results. And you can also freeze the marinara sauce... if you don't just eat it all fresh!

To make the tomato sauce in the food mill, I simply cut up whole uncooked unpeeled tomatoes into quarters, fill the hopper, and let it churn. Out one slot comes pure tomato pulp and juice, out the other comes the seeds, core, and peel. The food mill comes with a hand crank which I used for my first big harvest of tomatoes and it took me two hours! Then I got smart and attached the optional electric motor and it cut the time way down. The waste goes into my compost pile - no wonder I get little tomato plants where ever I spread compost in the spring.

To the bowl of pure tomato puree, I add chopped garlic, loads of chopped fresh basil, chopped onion (all from my garden too), salt, and some of my jalapeno powder. (You can add other ingredients too, but I try to stick with recipes when hot water bath canning so I don't alter the pH. And adding meat requires pressure canning.) Then it all gets "cooked down" to about half the original volume, to thicken the sauce, which I do over medium low heat with the pot uncovered so the moisture can evaporate. It's so hot here that I hate to heat up the house with hot pots on the kitchen stove, so I use a portable gas cooking unit set up on the big porch. Great view of the mountains, so it's not too shabby! Works out great when I am doing a lot of canning too, using the outdoor dining table as my work station.

Caution: canning is LOTS of work! When you figure all your time and what you get out of it, you can only justify it with the fact that you are using wonderful freshly harvested food and your own good ingredients.

So try making your own tomato sauce. We'll be enjoying ours next winter when there are no fresh tomatoes around.

Growing Tomatoes

In my neck of the woods, it is the perfect time to plant tomato plants in the garden (zone 7). Apologies to my friends from New Hampsha' - I don't mean to rub it in while you are still in mud season! I'm constantly learning, but here are my techniques for growing tomatoes from seed. This is long and detailed - sort of like a Julia Child recipe - but perhaps it will help you.

If you don't want to start your own seeds, skip down to the section about hardening off....

STARTING SEEDS
About 8 to 12 weeks before your last freeze date, start your earliest tomato seeds. I started Roma seeds on Jan. 15th this year, and they have just started to flower. Roma is a determinate type, which means all the fruit ripens all at once and then the plant peters out, which is great if you plant to freeze or preserve. I also started Brandywine and Cherry tomato seeds around Feb 15, and some Amish Paste Tomato seeds last week (mid April), for one later crop. The Amish Paste are another plum/roma type, but they are indeterminate and will therefore produce continuously. We love homemade salsa!

Soak the seeds for two hours in a small glass of water. Then remove them from the water, and lay them about 1" apart on a dampened paper towel (Viva brand is recommended). Softly fold the paper towel once or twice and carefully place in an open ended clear plastic bag. Fold the end over, but don't seal it (needs air). Place the bag in a pie plate in case the water leaks, and put in a warm place, like on top of the refrigerator. It doesn't need to be well lit, just warmth will make the seeds begin to sprout.

In 2-3 days carefully unfold the paper towel to see if the seeds have swelled and are sending out a white shoot. If so, they are ready to plant. If not, return to the bag and check every few days, then continue with these instructions when growth appears.

I handle them very carefully and plant these tiny seedlings in little seedling starter peat pellets which have been soaked in warm water to swell them. Plant so the seed and its shoot are about 1/4" under the soil, and gently firm the soil around them. Put these in a warm, brightly lit place, like a sunny window or under a light bulb which gives off heat. I use the clear plastic clamshell containers which strawberries and lettuce mixes are sold in as mini-greenhouses, nesting my little peat pellets close together inside which helps keep them from drying. They will dry fast under the light and with all the soil exposed, so check every day to be sure they are damp. In about 2-3 days you will see tiny green seed leaves begin to grow. If you have a warm sunny window, you probably won't need to keep the plants under the artificial light anymore. Rotate the plant if it grows toward the light source.

Once I begin to see roots come through the peat pellet netting, I transplant each plant into a 4" pot with damp fresh seed starting soil. Continue to keep in a warm and well lighted place as the plant grows. Don't worry too much if it gets tall and leggy, or even if it bends over instead of standing up straight... you'll see why when I describe trenching below.

HARDENING OFF
I bought a cold frame this year, so my next step is to put the potted tomatoes in it, just sitting on top of the garden soil. I open the cold frame on sunny days and close it at night if the temperature is going below 60 degrees. This "hardens off" the plant, getting it ready for life in the garden.

Also this year I have tried using a product called Kozy Coats when ready to plant the tomatoes in the garden soil. This is a tubular red bag with vertical pockets, open at the top. You fill the pockets with water and the red plastic absorbs daytime heat. I support the inside walls of the Kozy Coat with two 3' wooden stakes driven into the soil on each side of the plant's roots. At night, the heat keeps the plant warmer than the outdoor air. If there is a chance of frost or freeze, you can collapse the sides down so it forms a more protective teepee shape. So far my results with using this product on the first two tomato plants put in the garden have been successful. I am past the average last freeze date now, but they continue to keep the plant warm which tomatoes like.

PLANTING IN THE GARDEN
OK, now for planting the tomatoes in the garden. Best lunar planting time is in the waxing of the moon, the two weeks before the full moon, since these are plants with fruit harvested from the above-ground part of the plant.
My planting ingredients include:

• 2 dry eggshells
• Pail of good compost or purchased aged or composted manure
• Espoma brand "Starter Plus": about 1/3 c mixed into the above listed compost (this is a new product for me, which re-introduces beneficial mycorrhizae fungus to the soil, making plant roots stronger. I bought it at Lowes.)
• Tomato plant, just watered (to hold the soil together when you remove it from the pot)

I use the "trenching" method, which works well especially if the plant is tall and skinny vs. bushy. It helps force the plant to grow stronger roots. This method is also suggested for peppers and eggplants:  Assuming you are planting in a very sunny location, in good garden soil which you've adjusted with lime or otherwise for a pH of about 6 to 6.5, dig a hole where you intend to plant the tomato. Make the hole about 6" deep by 12" long by 8" wide. If you plant the tomato roots too deep, they can suffocate, I've read. Use about half of the removed soil, mixing it in the pail with the composted soil mix. Pile the rest of the dug soil in a ring around the hole. Crush the two eggshells and sprinkle them into the bottom of the hole. This will add a boost of calcium and will prevent "blossom end rot" which is when one end of the tomato is a big brown patch.

Carefully pinch off and discard the lowest leaves of your tomato plant close to the center stem, leaving about 5" of leafy growth at the top of the plant. Also pinch off the tiniest set of two leaves in the very top center, to make the plant grow side branches. Squeeze the sides of the pot to loosen the soil, then slide out the plant root ball with all the soil. Lay the plant on its side in the hole you have dug, with the roots at one end of the 12" trench and the naked stem laying in the hole, and the leafy top at the other end of the trench. Carefully fill the trench with the soil mix in the pail, from the root end up the stem, letting the leafy end project above the soil. Fill the hole so it is slightly below the surrounding soil level, even mounding the garden dirt in a circle around the plant top to make a basin where the water will fill and funnel into the plant roots. Press the soil to compact it a bit.

Put the plant in its Kozy Coat or support the plant within a sturdy tomato cage. I sometimes get the cage in the soil before I start planting the tomato, so I won't disturb the plant after planting. Cages can be purchased or made from rolls of concrete reinforcement wire. We get very strong ones and support them with a tall rebar stuck in the ground and fastened to one side of the cage. A strong wind can topple a large tomato plant in a cage right when it is at the height of production - I speak from experience. A stake inserted near the center stem can be used as a support as the tomato plant gets tall.

Tomatoes like "bottom watering" but I figure the rain soaks the whole plant, so I'm not so fussy. Watch for bugs or signs of disease; last year, a very wet spring, I had my first case of "blight," which made the leaves turn yellow with brown veins before they dropped from bottom to top. I didn't know what it was and was too late in treating the blight. I got a few tomatoes from plants which ended up looking like topiaries, but soon the plants croaked. This year I am watching for any early sign of blight, and am prepared to use a copper treatment.

I grow organic fruit, veggies and herb gardens, fertilizing with fish emulsion and other purchased organic fertilizers, and using garlic spray, food-grade Diatomaceous Earth, and other organic pesticides. I hope to have some cherry tomatoes in May this year!

Happy gardening.