Happy Holidays!

It's been awhile! Just a brief update about the garden:

1. We tarped the garden this fall which will hopefully get rid of the blight



2. Our chickens got themselves a pet! Apparently there is a field mouse living in the hen house in the hay with them.

3. Not much else happening in the garden. Just day dreaming about fresh produce:




We had our annual Christmas cookie baking on Saturday. We beat last year's total again!http://countrygalinthecity.blogspot.com/2010_12_01_archive.html And this year we upgraded to an industrial kitchen. This is getting out of control!

Good News, Bad News

Let's start with the good news! Our blueberry plants are doing great and we've had our first few berries!!! Look how pretty





Now for the bad news :( A fungus called blight has infected our tomatoes again. There are two types of blight:

"Early Blight can affect the foliage, stems and fruit of tomatoes. Symptoms: Dark spots with concentric rings develop on older leaves first. The surrounding leaf area may turn yellow. Affected leaves may die prematurely, exposing the fruits to sun scald."

"Late blight affects both the leaves and fruit of tomatoes. Late Blight is the disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine. Late Blight spreads rapidly. Cool, wet weather encourages the development of the fungus. If you suspect you have Late Blight, contact your Local Extension Service for definite ID. Symptoms: Greasy looking, irregularly shaped gray spots appear on leaves. A ring of white mold can develop around the spots, especially in wet weather. The spots eventually turn dry and papery. Blackened areas may appear on the stems. The fruit also develop large, irregularly shaped, greasy gray spots."



There isn't really a good way to get rid of blight once it's infected the plants. The best thing to do is remove the infected plant. Do not try to compost it! Make sure it is completely removed from the garden area. If the blight doesn't seem to be too bad yet, you can try removing the infected areas of the plant first. This fall we're going to need to treat the soil to try to completely remove the blight and prevent it from occurring again next year. Not sure how we do that yet...I'll keep you posted.

Tomatoes!

It's tomato season! We've actually had a great crop this year. We tried a variety of new plants...some with great success and other we won't be planting again. We really like the new type of cherry tomatoes we planted that actually look like tear drops. There will be multiple plants of that variety next year!

So what do you do with tons of tomatoes? Make SALSA!

First, pick your recipe. We use a mix from Mrs. Waggs. It's not my favorite because I think it has a hint of chili powder flavor but everyone else loves it.



Next, you want to boil the tomatoes for about 3 minutes. Just long enough that the skin starts to crack. Then immediately place them into ice cold water. Finally, remove the skins from the tomatoes.



Chop your tomatoes into whatever size you'd like.



Then add the seasoning packet (or you could just use your own seasons), fresh peppers and onions and boil for 10 minutes.










Once it's done cooking, carefully place it into your storage contains. We used Ball jars just because we had them handy. You can actually can salsa but we made just enough to eat this time.


Other ideas for tomatoes:
-Cucumber tomato salad
-Pizza sauce
-Spaghetti sauce
-eat plan with a dash of salt!

What do you do with your fresh tomatoes?