Category Archives: general

‘The Tomato Lady’ returns to Santa Fe Farmers Market

‘The tomato Lady’-first day sold out of Tomatoes

Yesterday I returned to our Farmers Market here in Santa Fe, NM as the ‘Tomato Lady’ and sold out of my tomatoes by 10 am.

It’s been a long wait all summer for my tomatoes to ripen and they have started but are not full blown yet. So I had some tomatoes but not a ton. In another couple of weeks, I should be overwhelmed with tomatoes. I also had Costata Romanesco  and Lungo Bianco zucchini, Bennings Green Tint and Yellow Custard scallop summer squash,  Fairytale eggplants, Shishito peppers, Padron peppers, Parade, Armenian cucumbers and Rattlesnake pole beans. For tomatoes I had Early Wonder, Pantano Romanesco, Goliath, Sun Sugar and Black Cherry and a few Costuluto Genovese. Hope I have lots more next week!

How to make pickles

From left- bread and butter, cornichons, and dill pickles

Following are the recipes I use for each of them:

BREAD AND BUTTER PICKLES II (I modified this from Allrecipes.com)
Makes 8 one quart jars or 16 pints-you can make smaller amounts if you want

25 cucumbers, scrubbed, cleaned, and sliced, blossom end cut off (the pickles will get discolored if left on)
6 onions, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic. sliced
1/2 cup salt

3 cups white vinegar
5 cups white sugar
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons celery seed
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves
1 tablespoon tumeric

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large bowl, mix together cucumbers, onions, garlic and salt. Allow to sit 3 hours.
2. In a large saucepan mix together the vinegar, sugar, mustard seed, celery seed, whole cloves, and turmeric. Bring to a boil.
3. Drain liquid from cucumber mixture. Rinse and drain cucumbers. Stir the cucumbers mixture into the boiling vinegar mixture. Remove from heat just before it returns to a boil.
4. Transfer to sterile containers. Seal and chill in the refrigerator for one month before eating or process in water bath for 10 minutes or 15 minutes for our high altitude. (Add an additional 15 minutes for our 7000′ high altitude) I put some in the refrigerator and process the others. For water bath process, store in a cool dry place and wait one month before eating. Refrigerate after opening.

Be sure to wait one month before eating, whether making refrigerator style or water bath process-the flavors permeate the cucumbers better. Once I couldn’t wait and opened a jar after 2 weeks but it was not as flavorful. It’s worth the wait.

REALLY QUICK DILL PICKLES (from ‘The Joy of Pickling’)
Makes 3 one quart jars or 6 pints-this is a no brine method

-For firmer pickles, add 2-3 grape leaves or 6-8 sour cherry leaves of each qt of pickles but it is not necessary.

You can double or triple this recipe to fit your harvest.

ONE QUART METHOD
DIRECTIONS:
To make a single qt of pickles, you’ll need 1 cup water, 7/8 cup vinegar=3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons vinegar, 8 peppercorns, 2 garlic cloves, pinch of dried pepper flakes, 1 dill head. Pour boiling liquid mixture over packed cleaned cucumbers in jars. Leave 1/2 inch headroom in jar. Seal and process. See below.

3 QUART OR 6 PINTS METHOD
DIRECTIONS:
4 lbs of cucumbers, scrubbed and cleaned, blossom end cut off (the pickles will get discolored if left on)
24 peppercorns
1 garlic head, peeled and sliced
dried pepper flakes to taste
fresh dill heads (or dill seeds if fresh dill not available)
2 3/4 cup white vinegar
3 cups water
1/4 cup pickling salt (or non iodized salt)

1. Half or quarter cucumbers lengthwise. Divide the peppercorns,garlic, and hot peppers (if you are using them) among 6 pint or 3 quart mason jars. Pack the cucumbers in tightly into the jars.

2. In a saucepan, bring the vinegar, water, and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt. Pour the hot liquid over the cucumbers, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Close the jars with the 2 piece caps. In a boiling water bath, process the jars for 10 minutes, quart jars 15 minutes (Add an additional 15 minutes more for our 7000 ft high altitude).

3. Store in a cool dry place and wait one month before eating. Refrigerate after opening.

FRESH PACKED REFRIGERATOR DILL PICKLES –LEMON DILLS (from ‘The Big Book of Preserving The Harvest’)
Makes 1 quart or 2 pints

10-14 pickling cucumbers, scrubbed and cleaned, blossom end cut off (the pickles will get discolored if left on)
3 sprigs dill
2 cloves
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
cold water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Pack sterilized jars with cucumbers, dill, and garlic leaving 1/2 inch headspace
2. pour the lemon juice over the cucumbers
3. Seal and refrigerate. These will keep 6 weeks or more in refrigerator. Wait one -2 weeks for flavors to blend.

SHORT BRINED DILL PICKLES (from ‘The Joy of Pickling’)
Makes about 8 quarts

-This recipe is very flexible as long as you keep the proportions of vinegar, water salt and sugar. You can vary the seasonings as you like.
-For firmer pickles, add 2-3 grape leaves or 6-8 sour cherry leaves of each qt of pickles but it is not necessary.

ONE QUART METHOD
DIRECTIONS:
You may prefer to make your pickles by the quart. For this, drop into each jar 2 sliced garlic cloves, 4 peppercorns, and pinch of hot pepper flakes. Pack the cucumbers into the jars with 2-3 heads of dill and pour over the cucumbers a hot solution of 1 cup each vinegar and water with 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar and 2 teaspoons salt. Leave 1/2 inch headroom at top of jar. In a boiling water bath, process the jars for 10 minutes, quart jars 15 minutes (Add an additional 15 minutes more for our 7000 ft high altitude) Store in a cool dry place and wait one month before eating. Refrigerate after opening.

8 QUART METHOD
12 lbs 3-5 inch cucumbers, scrubbed and cleaned, blossom end removed
1 1/2 cups pickling salt
2 gallons plus 2 quarts water
7 1/3 cups white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
16 cloves garlic, sliced
32 peppercorns
16-24 heads of dill
dried hot pepper flakes (if desired)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Half or quarter cucumbers lengthwise or leave whole. In a very large bowl or soup pot or crock, dissolve 3/4 cup pickling salt in 2 gallons of water. Add the cucumbers and weight them with a heavy plate that just fit the container. Let stand in the brine at room temperature for 8-12 hours.
2. Drain the cucumbers. If you like less salty pickles, rinse well and drain them again.
3. In a non reactive pot, bring to a boil the remaining 3/4 cup pickling salt, the remaining 2 quarts water, the vinegar, and the sugar. While the mixture heats, divide the garlic and peppercorns amount the 8 quarts or 16 pint mason jars. Pack the cucumbers, dill, hot pepper (and grape or sour cherry leaves if you are using them).
4. Pour the hot liquid over the cucumbers, leaving 1/2 headspace. Close and in a boiling process pint jars for 10 minutes, quart jars for 15 minutes (Add an additional 15 minutes for out altitude at 7000 ft high) Store in a cool dry place and wait one month before eating. Refrigerate after opening.

CORNICHONS (from ‘The Foodlovers Guide to Paris’) tiny tart pickles
Makes 2 quarts or 4 pints- you can make smaller portion by cutting the recipe in half.

60  two inch small pickling cucumbers
1/4 cup kosher or pickling salt
1 quart water plus
3 cups white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
12 small white pickling onions
4 large sprigs fresh tarragon
6 cloves garlic sliced
dried hot peppercorns
2 bay leaves

DIRECTIONS:
1. Trim off stem ends of cucumbers, rinse and drain.
2. In a large bowl combine the salt with one quart water. Stir until the salt is dissolved, add the cucumbers and let stand for 6 hours.
3. Drain the cucumbers, discarding the salted water. I like to rinse them.
4. In a medium saucepan over medium heat combine the vinegar, 1 1/2 cups water and the sugar and bring to a boil. Layer the jars with the drained cucumbers, onions, herbs and spices. Pour the boiling vinegar mixture into the jars leaving 1/2 headspace. In a boiling water bath, process the jars for 10 minutes, quart jars 15 minutes (Add an additional 15 minutes more for our 7000 ft high altitude) Store in a cool dry place and wait one month before eating. Refrigerate after opening. You can also just refrigerate them but still wait one month before eating.

Different cucumbers for different pickles

Sunday afternoon, my good friend John came over and we made pickles. All different kinds. Last year I researched what kind of cucumber was good for different types of pickles.

'Boothsby Blonde' cucumbers- good for bread and butter pickles

We made bread and butter pickles with my Boothsby Blonde cucumber, a creamy white  flavorful cuke that turns bright yellow.  All stages are edible with no bitterness.  After making my own bread and butter pickles last year, I will never buy store bought again. The flavor is incredible and is at least 100x better than the store bought and I’m not kidding.

'Parade' cucumber makes a good dill pickle

Then we made some dill pickles from my Parade cucumber which is a great cuke for dill as they are also excellent flavor, firm and evenly sized which is great for cutting them into dill spears. We used some fresh dill I grew from my garden.

Lastly we made my favorite- cornichons. I first fell in love with them in a little french cafe in San Diego where the french owners served them with sandwiches. We made the cornichons (which means tiny tart pickle) with Parsian cucumbers.

'Parsian' cucumbers-use for Cornichon pickles

In the picture I show one that grew too large and the rest are good size. I cut the ones that are 4 inches in half and leave the 2 inch cukes whole. I even cut the big one down into smaller spears about 4 inches in length. The Parsian cucumber has small seeds and is never bitter. We try to pick them very early when they are 2-3 inches long as they are meant to be a small pickle but sometimes you’ll find a large one hiding under the leaves. If it is much larger than the one shown, then I compost it or feed it to the chickens. Your main herb for flavor is tarragon instead of dill with cornichons.

N. Harp and Grande pumpkins

949 N. Harp flower

949 Harp pumpkin/20 lbs on 8-14

As Christy Harp, the new giant pumpkin world record holder (1725 lbs) once said, “Growing giant pumpkins-it’s not a hobby, it’s an obsession!” I have to agree because once you get some growing, it is so much fun to watch and I mean literally! The first photos are of my biggest on the N.Harp plant. Look how round it is.

895 Grande female flower

The other pictures are of my biggest pumpkin from the Grande 895 plant. Look how oval it is. I’ve shown the beginning pic and current pic-they are pretty much the same shape as when I first pollinated them. When I went out the other evening and measured those pumpkins, the 895 Grande had put on 3.5 inches in girth from the evening before. That’s in 12 hours. I have more pumpkins coming on but those 2 are my biggest and are now 20 and 25 lbs-small for giant pumpkins but they are only babies and will grow extremely fast in August and September. I haven’t named them yet but will this week. (yes I name them. Any veggie you grow for 5-6 months and grows this fast deserves a name) It has begun..

895 Grande/25 lbs on 08-14

Baby giant pumpkins are putting on weight

I actually measured the baby pumpkin on the N. Harp main vine yesterday and today because it is starting to grow (at least for now). It is about the size of a soccer ball now. Circumference was 27″ yesterday and today it was 28.5″. A gain of 1.5 inches in 24 hours . This evening I measured using the OTT method which is more accurate and Harp’s total measurement was 51.5 and the 895 Grande main was 47 OTT. The measuring chart doesn’t go down that low so I’m not sure how much they weigh yet  but should sometime this week as they start to really grow.

Garden Arbor Entrance update August 4

garden arbor entrance

Here is a picture of the garden arbor in my entrance to the veggie garden. The ‘Rattlesnake’ beans, a pole variety that can grow 13 feet a season, are doing really well covering the arbor-just like I envisioned when I built it at the beginning of the season. An added bonus is they taste great. You only have to pick the beans before they get too big and tough. I ate some raw right out of the garden and they have a nutty sweet flavor that I like better than the ‘Contender’ bush beans that are just finishing up. Rattlesnake beans are a winner!

entrance right side

Also pictured to the right of the arbor are chartreuse colored ‘Golden Sunshine’ Scarlet Runner beans  I got from Cook’s Garden growing on the fence. They come from England. I love their bright yellow green leaves against the other greens. I grow them just because they are so beautiful and I love that purple varigated color of the seeds when they are dried. They haven’t flowered yet as they are just climbing the fence but when they do, the bright red blossoms will look great against that yellow-green.

Behind the Scarlet runner beans, still on the right side of the entrance are my giant ‘Titan’ sunflowers that will be fantastic a little later when they get their huge flowers. They will grow up to 10 feet tall and have heads that can get up to 24 inches wide! I call all sunflowers the guardian angels of the garden. Did you know sunflower flower heads follow the sun all day long? Sun worshipers! Hence their name. They are so majestic! Behind them are various flowers that will be blooming soon to add color and attract beneficial insects.

entrance inside left

entrance inside left

On the left side just inside the entrance, are asparagus fronds, calendula, ”Bright Lights’ chard, ‘Chianti’ sunflowers, multicolor ‘Japonica’ corn from Seedsavers Exchange and other flowers coming along. I got a late start in this section of the garden but it should look great later this month and I will take more pictures then.

organic fungicides to use for Powdery Mildew

We’ve been getting so much rain lately that I am worried about Powdery Mildew (PM) and other fungal and bacterial diseases caused by too much rain. It is a blessed curse. The garden takes off  and really grows from all the rain but the conditions are right for PM so I am trying to take precautions by doing several things to be as preventative as possible.

First I’m cleaning out all dead or yellow leaves that are usually underneath the canopy of the squashes and beans and tomatoes. I use clippers to cut out the dead stems  or yellow leaves (like on the tomatoes) and I sterilize them between each plant so not to spread any diseases that the plant may have that I don’t know about yet. The idea is to clean up under the canopy of  leaves and provide more air space. I have a small container that I fill with 4 cups of water and I put in about 1/4 cup bleach and use this as a disinfectant for my clippers and gloves. I just dip my clippers and hand with my glove into the container and then move onto the next plant. You can use isopropyl alcohol instead but you could go through a lot of alcohol and the bleach works just as well. The next thing I do is spray weekly with Neem and baking soda or instead use copper fungicide which is stronger but still organic. I think the Neem and baking soda are more preventative and if you get some fungal diseases then the copper can kill it. Copper is organic but one still needs to follow the directions but you can spray it right up to the day of harvest. All of these need to be sprayed on both the top and underneath the leaves and have to be resprayed if it rains. The third thing I’m doing this year is using a biofungicide that is used as a drench. This is new to me but it is just certain soil organisms that help the plant ward off many fungal and bacterial diseases. I’m using it on my giant pumpkins and will let you know how they do. Another biofungicide is Mycostop which is also suppose to do the same thing. There may be others out there, just google biofungicides.

Baby Baby Pumpkin

Christy and Nick Harp's new baby-Blaine

Here is a wonderful picture of Christy Harp’s new baby on top of one of her pumpkins this year that she posted on her BigPumpkins.com diary. Last year Christy grew the World Record Giant Pumpkin of 1725 lbs. I think it is a beautiful picture!

Pumpkin sex again

Sorry for two posts on Pumpkin sex  but I accidently posted the first one 101 without the pictures so I redid it and called it Pumpkin Sex 101a with pictures so you could see how hand pollination is done. Just in case you were wondering!

Elodie’s basil pesto

basil-cleaned and ready to be made into pesto

Three basil plants needed trimming to keep them bushy. Here is the recipe and some pictures for making basil pesto.

Elodie’s Basil Pesto

About 6-8 cups packed of fresh, clean basil
good quality olive oil
garlic crushed
Parmesan cheese
shelled pinon nuts-1/2 cup

Clean, wash and cut off stems from basil. Crush garlic and add to blender.

add oil to basil

Put about 1/3 of the basil into a blender and start to pour olive oil into the blender (maybe 1/2 cup or a little more). Start to blend on low and add more basil and/or oil as needed to make the mixture  thick (like thick spaghetti sauce) but still pourable.

add Parmesan cheese to basil

Add Parmesan cheese to taste and a little salt if needed but taste it before adding salt as the cheese has lots of salt in it. You can add pinion nuts if you have them but we didn’t here. Put in plastic freezable ziploc baggies and flatten the baggie as pictured. The mixture should be no more than 1/2 inch thick when bag is flattened. Put in freezer and break off chunks as needed. Don’t heat the pesto or the basil will turn dark (it’s ok to eat but not as pretty).

final pesto

Just break off a chunk from your baggy of pesto and put it on your drained but still hot pasta and it will ‘melt’ into the pasta as you mix it up. This amount made about 2 cups of pesto.

giant pumpkin flower pollinated!

945 N. Harp 5 segment stigma

So the 945 N. Harp pumpkin flower that I said was almost ready to open, did this morning as pictured above. That was really fast to open. So I got some male flowers off the same plant that had pollen and broke them off, stripped away the petals and used them like a little paintbrush to go all around the outside and also inside the stigma. Notice this stigma has 5 segments. Most big pumpkins have 4 or 5 segments and some have 6 but many of the six segment ones abort due to insufficient pollination.

female flower with male flowers around it after hand pollination

The next picture is of the flower after I hand pollinated it with the ‘spent’ stamens in front of it. I almost feel like smoking a cigarette!

The last picture is where I closed up the flower with a twistie tie so the bees won’t accidentally pollinate it with another pumpkin’s pollen. By controlling pollination, I try to control (somewhat) what the future seeds of the pumpkin will be but it won’t affect this year’s pumpkin and what it will look like only it’s seeds.

pollinated giant pumpkin flower closed with twistie

I will cross pollinate some of the other female blossoms with some of my other pumpkin plants to see what the next generation’s seeds will produce next year. But this one I self pollinated it. So on the same pumpkin plant you could have some pumpkins that were self pollinated and others that were pollinated with other pumpkin plants.

Pumpkin Patch

giant pumpkin leaving low tunnel

The pumpkin patch is finally getting bigger although I am about one month behind all the other giant pumpkin growers so we will see what we get this year. Here is the 1166 Mohr. It will be the first to leap (LOL) out of it’s low tunnel. The others are close behind. I told them they needed to be out of the tunnels by yesterday-but some are not listening! I have been feeding them Neptune’s fish emulsion and Seaweed fertilizer.

This week I am getting some new products to put on them to help them grow from Extreme Pumpkin. They sell both non organic and organic products for giant pumpkin growers. Hope they take off like a rocket!

tomato hornworm attack!

tomato hornworm courtesey of W.S. Crenshaw/Colorado State University

I’ve found some tomato hornworms in the garden this morning. I picked them off and gave them to the chickens. Here is some information about them. This pale green caterpillar has white and black markings, is 3 1/2 to 4 inch long and is the larval stage of the Sphinx moth.

sphinx moth courtesey of W.S. Crenshaw/Colorado State University

It is also called the hawk moth or hummingbird moth.  It is called the hummingbird moth because of it’s long “beak” which is not really a beak at all, but a slender, tubular feeding and sucking organ. It is not a hummingbird but an insect. It is a grayish-colored moth with a wing spread of 4 to 5 inches. I see it visiting my flowers at dusk and at night. It is attracted particularly to purple flowering plants. The moth is not harmful to your plants only as the larva caterpillar-the tomato hornworm. A friend of mine called me to say her plants were being visited by the Monarch Butterfly and wanted to know if they would hurt her tomatoes. The answer is no, the Monarch Butterfly lays it eggs on milkweed and when it is a caterpillar feeds on milkweed and feeds on nectar from other plants when it is an adult.

I noticed a couple of things about the hornworm today. First I got out early and caught it sleeping. At least I think it was sleeping as it didn’t move for a long time and it was still really chilly outside (I thought maybe it needed warmth to get up and going or perhaps it had a hangover from eating so many tomato leaves!). The first thing I do after looking to see if the plants look good (as in no disease showing up) is to see if any of the leaves are eaten. The hornworm usually start feeding from the highest part of the plant first. If I see that, then I also look for their poop (called frass) which are quite large pellets about 1/8 inch in size. You can see it sometimes on the branch or on the ground. The hornworms are hard to see as they blend in so well with the foliage but keep looking around the damaged areas and you will find them. Anyways the 3 times I’ve seen them so far this year, they all hang upside down on the tomato branch-so look for them that way. I don’t like to handle them with my bare hands. I usually have gardening gloves on so I’m not so squeamish about picking them off. They are so large they give me the creeps but they are quite beautiful. I will have to do more inspections to catch them.

I luckily haven’t had huge amounts of them so I prefer handpicking them but if I found I had tons of them, I would spray with Bt for caterpillars. Bt is short for Bacillus thuringiensis. It is a live bacteria that kills caterpillars only. It doesn’t harm bees, or birds or humans-only caterpillars. It is perfectly safe for organic growers. When the caterpillar takes a bite of your leaf, it dies. It interferes with their digestive system. You can buy it at a nursery. Usually the big box stores don’t carry it. The only bad thing about Bt, is that is washes off with the rain and must be reapplied.

hornworm with wasp cocoons

The other thing that is helpful comes from nature itself.  If you see little white cocoon things on the hornworm, leave them alone as a helpful parasitic wasp has layed their eggs on them and the caterpillar will soon die. An added bonus is all the little wasps will attack other hornworm caterpillars. The wasp is not like the wasp we think of that stings us. It is a little thing, almost fly like, doesn’t sting us and is one of those beneficial bugs you would like to have in your garden.

Giant tomato

Here is a picture of one of my giant tomatoes on it’s way to stardom. (I hope!)

baby giant tomato

Notice this tomato looks deformed and gnarly. It has 4 little tomatoes that have fused together-kinda like Siamese twins only this one is quadruplets! Most giant tomatoes are a result of a megablossom where 2 or more blossoms fuse together. Many megablossoms do not pollinate fully and so they have a higher self abort rate. So far this one is doing well. I have a few other megablossoms right now but not many. Some varieties produce more megablossoms and hence more giant tomatoes. Two varieties that have the potential of producing giant tomatoes are Delicious and Big Zac. There are other varieties that can produce giant tomatoes too. This one in the picture comes from a Nick Harp tomato seed. His plant grew a 7 lb+ tomato last year and he gave me a few seeds. I call his plants the ‘Harpies”! I have 5 growing right now. Hope this one becomes a monster! Since I’m an organic grower I’ve been feeding it fish and seaweed fertilizer from the Neptune brand.

tomato suckers

tomato sucker

Don’t forget to pinch out the suckers on your tomatoes. Some people say pinch them and some say not to. I am in the camp of pinch them. I might try to leave one with suckers on to see how they differ throughout the season next year but they are all pinched or will be pinched soon this year! Where a branch comes off the main vine and in the crotch or ‘v’  where the two branches meet is a little branch that starts-this is a sucker and if left to grow will help contribute to unruly growth. The sucker in the picture is starting to get big and needs to be pinched out. You’ve probably had some tomatoes that were out of control growth wise. If you don’t pinch it out, your plant can become monstrous. I need to take them off weekly. Notice I said need..I’m having my friend, Lava, come over next week who loves to pinch off the suckers-that should be a big help! Pinching is not a one time job but if you start early you can keep up on it. Keep looking at the new growth so you can pinch them when they are small. Otherwise take some scissors to cut them out if they get too big on you. Just remember to disinfect your scissors or hands with a little alcohol in between plants so as not to pass any diseases from one to another.