Tomatoes, Peppers and Weeds-Oh My!

My garden is almost like a scene in a scary movie. If we just had some B movie music for the background. You could seriously get lost or eaten in there! Katy and I went out last night and picked tomatoes, green and banana peppers and viewed many eaten cantaloupes. The deer are having a hayday! I have put up about 20 quarts of tomatoes, but that is pitiful considering how many plants we have. Many are splitting or are being eaten before I get to them, but I am glad we have some for the fall and winter. There is nothing like macaroni and tomatoes or soup and chili with home grown tomatoes! Apples are my next big task. They should be ready in a couple of weeks. Yahoo! Last year I put up about 80 quarts of apples. About 70 of those were apple pie filling. I have used those like crazy all year long. I figure we will give the garden a few more weeks and then I hope to turn it. All those nasty weeds will suffer a painful death!

Tomatoes and Peppers

Our garden looks absolutley horrible. Being gone for 10 days certainly didn't help it any, but the weather here is so dry, that everything looks pretty rough. I did manage to bring in a small amount of tomatoes this weekend. We have hundreds of them on the vine that haven't fallen prey to blossom end rot yet, but I am not sure they will make it. They are still so green. Need to make some fried green tomatoes. Yum! I will just put this small amount up in the freezer. I did put up 13 small bags of chopped green peppers this weekend as well. I like putting those through my food processor and storing them in about 1/2 cup amounts. I do the same thing with onions. It makes sauteing them for sauces and dishes very simple. Pop out a couple of bags and you are good to go! The other item we have plenty of is banana peppers. They are similar to a weed in their growth process. They need little to no care and will grow anywhere in rampant amounts! I make a banana pepper mustard that is out of this world for dipping and for sandwiches and I've even used some in deviled eggs to give them a kick. I will include my recipe here in case you have banana peppers coming our your ears too! Enjoy.

Sweet or Hot Banana Pepper Relish

9-12 banana peppers cleaned and chopped

1 cup white vinegar

1 cup prepared mustard

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp all purpose flour

1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp water

Cook the peppers in the vinegar for 5 minutes. Then add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Cook for about 10 minutes longer. You will need to stir frequently so that it doesn't stick to your pan. Let cool a bit and then put in containers. Store tightly sealed in refrigerator. This keeps very well. You could can it so that it could be stored on a pantry shelf or be given away as gifts.

Enough thread already!

I have spent the day ORGANIZING! Whoa baby!  My scrapbook area is super tidy and I made it easy to find all my materials.  I used my 8 1/2 X 11 paper organizer to house gallon size ziplocks in hanging folders that are labeled with titles of topics I scrap frequently like family, holidays, boy/girl, etc.  I can easily put new stuff in and take stuff out.  I also color coded all of my paper.  Huge task for me.  I organized embellishments and buttons and it makes me feel so good.  My next little project tonight is to organize my embroidery floss.  My mom gave me this cream organizer and also a big Danish Butter Cookie tin FULL of floss.  I am trying to number and wrap them all so that it will be easy to find what I am looking for.  All these projects that I never have time to do during the school year are finally getting done!
On another note, I weeded and watered the garden this morning and it is really coming along.  I have blooms on my tomatoes and pepper plants.  The corn is about 10 inches tall and all my zucchini/squash and melon plants are growing.  Hopefully we will have a great harvest this year.  I am looking forward to putting up tomatoes.  I have been putting mowed grass around the plants and that is helping to keep the weed growth down-YES! Will have some pics soon.