I’m off tomorrow.  I figured out today (after some serious google time) that the reason my tomatoes didn’t produce is because I put them in the ground too late.  Their pollen dies of at 90-95 degrees.  I started researching because baby girl and I harvested tons of green tomatoes the day after the first frost which was sometime last week.  The tomato plants starting dying but were covered in fruit.  I thought they started producing because once the squash died off I was watering them more.  Not so sure that was the case.

Pico de Gallo

Anyway, I started thinking about next year’s plant placement.  The tomatoes and squash are far bushier than the peppers, so the peppers need to be on the outside of the tomatoes.  I’m still not sure if the crooked neck squash and tomatoes have the same water requirements or not, I’ll need to do some more research.

I’ve been listening to Jack Spirko (at TSP) talk a lot lately about food forests.  I think that is what my original intention was regarding edibles in the yard.  That’s why I started with blackberry bushes back in the day.  Whenever I think about plants I always check to see if they are perennials first off.  I stopped thinking about the reasoning behind that, but now that I’ve come full circle I remember why that is.  Less maintenance, which ties in to the original purpose I wanted to start this blog, and why I stumbled into prepping and resilience to begin with: less time required.  I didn’t want it to be a hobby or project, I wanted set it and forget it more or less.  One of the main reasons I want to escape the cube.  I don’t mind hard work, but….

I was out in the garden doing some evaluation when I found an onion that must have just started growing off of a scrap I threw into the garden to add nutrients to the soil.  It’s gorgeous, rather small but a gorgeous color.  I’m going to chop it up along with the green tomatoes and one of the jalapeños and make my own green pico de gallo, an idea I can not take credit for.  I was lamenting the fact that the tomatoes didn’t come in soon enough for them to ripen which would have allowed me to make my own salsa, when baby girl said “why not make green salsa?”  Ah, from the mouths of babes.  Now why didn’t I think of that?  The problem is the solution.  My goal is to make my own home made salsa because I use it in many of the dishes I make.  Since I am using a no till, no chemical fertilizer, pesticide, or herbicide approach I’m pretty certain it is going to be a far healthier alternative to the store bought.  There were a couple of tomatoes that were mostly ripe when we were doing our harvesting, and the kids were blown away by how much flavor a tomato actually has.  I even let the ex-wife in on the deliciousness and she was impressed as well.  I secretly hope she regrets giving me crap about wanting a garden.  Not only does the food taste so much better, but it has it’s complete nutritional profile because it comes from all natural inputs and fully ripens on the vine (or stem, stalk, whatever).