Tag Archives: tomatoes

What do you get when…

OK, a riddle:

What do you get when you puree a couple dozen huge, juicy, red seeded tomatoes with several cloves of garlic, a big handful of cilantro, a giant super-sweet onion, the juice of 3 limes, some jalepenos (as much as you can take and still be functional) and Kosher salt (accept every blessing you can get!)?

The answer:

Fresh, home-made garden salsa – the kind that makes your tongue tingle and dimples pop!  Soooooo good.  I swear, I woke up thinking about it this morning!  YES!  It is that good!

Identity Confusion

 

I think the potted grape tomato plant is having trouble conceptualizing what it was bred to do.   So, while eating some actual grapes, the idea donned to place a small bunch into the tomato plant so it could visiualize the goal, where we want to be.

See, little grape tomatoes?   See these cute little grapes?   This is all I want.   I am not asking for more.   You just need to stay little and turn red and sweet.   There is really no sense in puffing up and trying to be a full-grown Roma, for that isn’t how God made you – that is not the goal of your life.

Packed all around its’ base are very happy and large purple-red celosia, apparently cheering this gargantuan-growth nonsense on.   Hopefully, however,  I have now relieved this particular plant of its’ incessant need to show off and elevate itself, to exhaust itself trying to be more and do more than anyone really wants.   It is true it had some help: the heavily-fruited grape tomato plant in the pot  on my patio  is loving the Miracle-Gro soil, as I have found, nearly all plants do.

Viva la Grape Tomato…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   Remind Stormie relentlessly  to care for tomatoes while I am away…

Guin-Guin Day in the Garden

Here is what we learned today, just Guini and I having a little time to ourselves: gardening trumps Play-Doh time.   We  harvested 3 different types of peppers,  4  varieties of tomatoes, some cukes, some zucchini and handfuls of green beans.   Oh – and some wayward okra that seeded itself this year.   We are choosing to ignore the field of garlic chives that is threatening to take over the entire backyard.  

     

Here is what else we learned:

  • Watering is fun no matter how wet you get.
  • That the corn has been left to “mature” a bit too long.   It is still tasty, but tough, so we’ll let the stalks turn brown now for front porch decor in a few weeks.
  • The chiles are slowing way down in production, but they are beauts!
  • Perhaps we should have staked the jalapenos?
  • We did NOT get the watermelon in soon enough and the baby fruit are dropping in the cool night air, so sadly, we shall not reap a harvest here.
  • Nonna doesn’t check the cukes as often as she should and she has let the green beans run wild.
  • Though we may have plucked the zucchini a bit too zealously, we can still enjoy every part.
  • And it is possible to garden in sparkly, pink shoes.

A day with Guini   (aka The Flower Girl) is a sweet, soft day…Jeanie (aka Nonna)

NOTE TO SELF: Check the bounty more often – this is what all the work and watering was for!

pictured: Guini with the second batch of garden goodies; Guini inspecting a zuch; Guini with her zucchini flower; and Guini discussing gardening and telling me she still likes flowers better than veggies.   Imagine that?   (Click on photos to enlarge)

Tomato Haters, Beware

There’s a new kid in town!   HA!

I kept noticing these nice, large and juicy-looking tomatoes that seemed to have started ripening, but then never quite kept going.   But never-you-mind, I was getting plenty from the other plants, anyway.   Finally, though  I had to find out “what gives??”

Guess what?   I forgot I had plopped a lemon-tomato into the ground!   I got this armload of juicy, tangy, pure-yellow tomatoes.   They pack a powerful punch of a taste, I tell you!   They are yellow through and through with no “green gooey seedy” centers, which Bryan accuses the red tomato of holding.   Oh-they are gooooood!

 

Sadly, today, I discovered the work of probably at least 2 hornworms chewing up my tomato plants.   I have never had a hornworm since living here (6 years) and this is not good.   Their natural enemy is the wasp and we seem to have plenty of them zooming around, but they did not do their job.   So, when I was cutting back some stringy petunias (which you really must force yourself to do about this time each  year for a spectacular late summer display) and a wasp charged me, I got out the spray and killed about 50 of them.   Dave threw away their little village.   Really-the one reason I let them live in the first place: hornworms!   I am going in deep to find those fat tomato killers, who  pretty much  look like  Heimlich from “A Bug’s Life,” (very rotund when having recently gorged on my tomato leaves) but are nothing more than satanic destroyers from hell.   They shall die I tell you!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…  

 

I ran into Baby Averi at Target and she told me to go ahead and roast up a batch of her green chiles (Averi’s Anaheim greens).   I picked a pile, along with some Macho Nacho Jalepenos and a couple of cucumbers.   The chiles  are slow roasting in the oven next to a pork butt and, baby, it is gonna be delish!   Green Chile is quintessential Colorado!

I have this strange domestic, cooking thing happening.   Somebody stop me…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   Kill the hornworms.   Kill the hornworms.   Kill the hornworms…Seek and destroy!

pictured: lemon tomatoes from my garden, a nasty hornworm; Gav and Averi investigating her garden area, the chiles she grew…

The Touching Tomato Garden Story

An old, Italian man lived alone in the country.   He wanted
to dig his tomato garden, but it was very hard work as the
ground was hard.   His only son, Vincent, who usually  helped him,
was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and
described his predicament.

Dear Vincent,  

I am feeling pretty low because it looks like
I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just
getting too old to be digging up a garden plot.   I know if you
were here my troubles would be over.   I know you would be happy
to dig the plot for me.  

Love, Dad

A few days later he received a letter from his
son.

Dear Dad,  

Don’t dig up that garden.   That’s where I buried
the bodies.  

Love, Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police
arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies.
They apologized to the old man and left.   That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Dad,  

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now.   That’s the
best I could do under the circumstances.  

Love you, Vinnie

   

People just send me this stuff.   No kidding.   :)…Jeanie

pictured: Some shots I snapped this morning of my future.   And it is good!