Salsa Garden

Hey, i know that i didn't post something awesome and patriotic for 4th of Ju-ly for ya'll and i'm sorry. I really am. I let you down? But listen, I know you had plenty to read, because every single blogger and their mom put up some kind of 4th of Ju-ly content for you to read. I'm still trying to work through it.

I've really slacked off lately, but work and sequential houseguests have kicked my butt. However, that's kind of what this post is about. I think last time I posted, I said that I wanted to serve homemade salsa to some of my houseguests. Well, guess what? I DID!

Not EVERY ingredient is from my 'lil 'ol garden, but some of them are. I used tomatoes, jalapenos, and cilantro from the garden, and I stripped it bare.

Thankfully, the tomatoes ripened right on time (that is, the Early Girls did)

(Does the Early Girl start to look a little bit wilted in these photos to you? I noticed it started looking wilted. Then one day when I watered it a million ants ran out of the container. I think the roots may be having some problems. It has not perked back up, sadly.)

The tomatoes off of this plant are not large, they are small. About the size of roma tomatoes. Which is perfect for salsa.



I had previously picked some to save them, so I had about four of them. I had to buy some more from the store to round out the recipe, because I wanted to make a biiiiiiig bowl. My homemade salsa is always a hit.

So, the recipe is:

Tomatoes: 8-10 romas preferable
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Couple cloves of garlic, chopped (always use fresh)
1 Red onion, chopped
Several limes, squeeze to taste
Salt, add to taste

and 1 jalapeno, chopped up small, I prefer to keep the seeds in!


The jalapeno plant has just been growing crazy. I mean, if you want a dependable reliable crop from a plant, I suggest planting a little jalapeno plant. Take a look at this sucker.

Big peppers on the bottom, more growing on the top. Constant rotation of production.

For the salsa, don't underestimate the need for the salt. Or the fresh garlic. I usually use 3 big cloves. That's me, though, and there's never enough garlic in our house. Then there's the lime. If there is something missing, it's probably lime. The problem is that it makes your salsa watery - but what you want to do is pop it into the fridge tightly covered with saran wrap for a good amount of time (at least an hour) to let the flavors gel . . . . and when you serve it up you can use a slotted spoon to put it in a pretty dish, like I have here.

Don't mind the obvious stovetop placement, as I have found this is the one place in my house I can take decent food photos.

However, (back to the subject at hand), once all of the salsa is gone you will find that you and your compatriots will be scooping up the salsa juice in frenzy, desperation, and nostalgia as you reminisce about all the unbelievably delicious salsa that was in the big bowl only moments ago. That's why I recommend using Tostito Scoops as the proper chip for this salsa. So does my husband.

I don't mean to toot my own horn about my salsa recipe. It's just that a) people rave about it, b) i personally love it, and c) i didn't make it up. Some man in Costco or Sam's Club told me how to make salsa when he gave me a salsa maker in, oh, 1999 or something, and i did buy the salsa maker (some plastic thing with some weird blade) and fell in love with that salsa and have been making it ever since.

How many times can I type salsa in one post???

Juicier and Juicier

Whenever i need cheering up, I go out and visit the wee tomatoes.

The Early Girl plant is looking great. Mid-week, the fruit had already doubled in size. Here are the tomatoes last week, on May 24:
And here they were in the middle of this past week, just a few days later!
With some baby tomatoes starting over here

Today, though, May 30, they were even bigger:
(in that photo you can see the babies over on the right).

The Big Boy or Better Boy (can never remember which) has a nice sized tomato growing by now, as well. This photo was taken today.
In Mr. Stripey news, he's definitely grown. Compare the photos of him previously with the ones from today.

MAY 24 photos:

MAY 30 photos (today)
The plant has grown so much that the branches are now at the top of the cage.

But, Mr. Stripey has some problems, as usual. The bottom branches are withering, and some of the leaves are yellow:
What you are looking at seems like a yellow leaf and nothing, and it is. But it used to be a branch with more leaves, etc. It went out down my hand and down my wrist. It withered and so did the parts resting on my fingers. I don't know exactly what is wrong. On the one hand, this plant is kind of in a low spot. Mister Siren thinks maybe we should add more dirt. I'm wondering if that would just create more mud.

On the other hand, there is a lot of new life on this plant. It's obviously growing rapidly, per the above photos. And these:
The fuzzy thing in the photo is what I used to think would turn into flowers. Instead it just turns into leaves and more leaves.

For the meantime, my verdict is that this plant is not dying, but it's definitely not bearing fruit. We are going to research whether or not we can fertilize it to help it flower. How much bigger does it really need to get? If you know or can offer any advice, please do, in the comments section.

Bunnies and Fences

This little guy


Is why we had to put up THIS fence:

It's about a 2 foot fence and we just step over it when we go in and out of the garden. That is the big Mr. Stripey tomato plant you see in the corner there by the fence. The fence seems to be working great to keep the bunnies out. I have seen no nibbles on my mesclun greens or other plants so far.

Here's a pictures of the entire garden right now:

On the right hand side you are looking at big Mr. Stripey in the top corner, with two other tomato plants coming down the row, and the last plant is a jalapeno. The next row of plants over to the left are two bell peppers, red and yellow. Here's more of a closeup:


You can also see two groups of zucchini seedlings at the bottom left, and a bunch of weeds.

The horizontal row of greens that you can see is the mesclun greens, doing quite well, and if anything was really growing, you would see three identical horizontal rows of bibb lettuce, arugula and sorrel. However, I just went in and weeded more and re-planted this weekend. Hey sometimes you have to start over. There on the left is my row of bush bean plants, looking great.

And on the far top left side are the tarragon, lavendar, and rosemary plants.

The container plants are doing well:

Dill (god i hope this is dill and not a weed)


Cilantro (although no seeds have come up yet, so i replanted some seeds this weekend - what you are seeing is a transplant):

And the Early Girl tomato plant:

Now, she has a flower on her now. I don't know what that means. I am going to have to look it up or ask my Aunt T, who seems to know a lot about growing tomatoes.

In addition, i said forget growing basil from seed and just transplanted three nice basil plants straight into the garden. I hope they take:

They should be getting enough water because guess what, it's Monday and it's RAINING AGAIN! GO VIRGINIA!