This area got 3 to 4 days of rain/drizzle/cloudy weather, and blight spread through the tomatoes like wild fire. I removed the Big Beef and Granny Smith (no great loss) tomato plants and trimmed the rest aggressively. Even the Mountain Magic and Plum Regal plants, which are blight resistant, look bad. I don't know how much longer tomatoes will be available.
Today I made the second batch of salsa this year. I picked about 15 pounds of Plum Regal and Health Kick tomatoes. The Plum Regal seem like they never want to ripen, and they retain a substantial green core that has to be dug out, or more accurately, I prefer to dig out, since I'm picky about my salsa. I prefer the Health Kick tomatoes for flavor and quality, and they don't seem to have blight any worse than the Plum Regal.
The sweet peppers, Carmen and Senise, were roasted on the grill for the salsa. After removing the skin and seeds, the peppers are blended into the tomato base.
Heat came from Bulgarian Carrot and Chenzo peppers. I used more this time, as the last batch was deemed insufficiently hot. The Bulgarian Carrot peppers have a fantastic flavor if I can get past the heat. The one knock on them is that they have a tough skin.
To see what other people are growing, head on over to Our Happy Acres.
4 comments:
The peppers are really pretty, and the tomatoes look good, too!
Have a wonderful week!
I made a commitment to Plum Regal this year, after mixed results last year. Nothing ripe yet. Good to know that Health Kick seems to be as blight-resistant (though nothing is blight-proof I guess). Heat and especially humidity is already taking a toll here, too.
Eggplant and eggs - I'll have to try it! I trhew some in a tikka masala sauce last night and that worked well. The eggplant almost melted. Japanese beetles are bad here this year too. They seem to prefer some pole beans over otehrs, and Fortex and Musica were hard hit. Looks like you will be supplied with salsa!
That's the one good thing about dry weather - it keeps blight at bay. So far, I've had to trim a few bottom leaves from the tomatoes, but nothing major. All that can so quickly change esp. as we had a couple of good storms yesterday.
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