Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Farming is Hard

Paula, Paula, how does your garden grow?

Not very well it turns out.

My cucumbers had to go as they were destroyed by thrips. My green beans produced one round of yummy vegetables and then they too had to go. Thrips. I tell ya. Nasty little things!

The tomatoes bloom like crazy, yet produce only a smattering of fruit. Come to find out, the Roma variety I bought at the local Home Depot, does not set fruit when the temperature gets above 95∘. We haven't seen less than 103∘ during the day for over a month. Go figure.

Guess what is loving the heat? That's right, the jalapenos!


My teeny tiny plant produced 8 perfect peppers all at the same time. When I finally got home from a 3 week trip, many of the fruits had started to turn red. Did you know red jalapenos are perfectly good to eat? In fact, they are sweeter and not as hot as their immature green buddies.

The peppers were a bit small for bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers, so I made salsa instead.


This is a mango salsa. I am not a chef so I have no recipe to share with you, but here are the ingredients in case you want to make some for yourself. Just add each ingredient until you think you have enough.

seeded and finely chopped jalapenos (please wear gloves while handling the jalapenos)
finely chopped sweet yellow onion
diced tomatoes
diced cucumber without seeds
diced ripe mangoes
fresh cilantro (warning! a little goes a long way!)
fresh lime juice
maybe some salt? I can't remember.

However I made it, it was yummy and great on the Panko fried fish we had for dinner.

Ole!