Cathi,

You know that I feel for you in the loss of your tomato plants, I really do. It is just a tough, tough break.

Now, those are GORGEOUS tomatoes and you should be proud. I hope you enjoy every yummy and delicious bite. On Sunday, we bought some special bacon for our next BLTs....it is jalapeno bacon. I can't wait to try that.

What are you doing to do about the soil? Solarize it? Got some other plan? Time to think about that.

How about tomato plants for fall? You could buy a couple of fall transplants in July (sooner if you see them sooner) and put them in containers. Even a plant or two would be better than nothing. Don't have containers? Buy a bag or two of quality potting soil and plant a bag garden. Don't know how to plant a bag garden? Let me know and I'll tell you.

Remember how I said I wasn't going to share those tomatoes with every Tom, Dick and Harry? Well, while you've been out busily harvesting all you can and (hopefully) disposing of those diseased plants, I've been harvesting peaches and plums. Three-hundred fifty-plus pounds of peaches and plums. So, guess what I've done with most of my tomatoes? I've been giving them away. I'm too busy making jelly, jam, dehydrating fruit, juicing fruit, eating fruit, etc. to deal with the tomatoes, so DS has been taking them to work to share with his fellow firefighters. One more week of Plum Purgatory and then I'll be back busy with tomatoes and peppers and such.

I thought it ironic that after I said I wouldn't give away my tomatoes, that I ended up doing just that. There's only so many hours in a day and I'm barely sleeping as it is, but we do have plum jelly. Lots of plum jelly. We have lots of tomatoes too, and as soon as I get the plums out of my hair and out of my house, I'll stop giving tomatoes away. He who laughs last laughs best, and at my house, Mother Nature is laughing last.

Dawn

Dawn,

Jalapeno bacon? Where would one get this?! I am going to try to make a tomatoe pie I found a recipe for tomorrow. I need to find more recipes for cukes and squash since that is what I am living off. Mainly I eat them with cottage cheese or in vinegar and water mix. Mmm.

I do have several plants that could go in the ground (or container) any time. When I was trying to stuff them all back in the cages early on, I broke a bunch of limbs off and felt bad so stuck them in water. They have a good amount of roots. I have been hesitant to put them outside to even start hardening them off as I'm afraid they will catch whatever through the bugs.

To be honest, I haven't given much thought about next year. Part of me is already defeated and doesn't want to deal with this again. I know I'll get over that soon, but it is still fresh dealing with all the death. :( How long do you have to solarize anyway? I would like to plant a bag garden, that sounds easy enough! Clue me in, please.

Well, I can't believe you have time to write here with all that picking! I only have a little garden and I can spend a lot of time out there. I'm glad for our sakes that you do check in here.

Enjoy all your jam and then tomatoes again! I've been forcing cukes and squash on people, so I don't feel so bad about being stingy with the tomatoes.

Cathi

Cathi,
Dawn's right. There's still time to plant fall tomatos. My dad always said they were the best kind anyway. Well, to me, the first BLT after a long winter's wait is the BEST! But any homegrown is better than none, and it looks like you've had some good eating already :)

And Dawn, how can you possibly say you don't "share tomatos" when you share so much time and knowledge to all of us teaching us how to grow our own? That's the best gift of all, the kind that truly does keep on giving. On the principal of "teach a man to fish".

Ok, so now you're giving them away again. Doesn't surprise me. You never stop giving...to all of us, and for that, I personally am very grateful, as I'm sure the rest of the garden web posters here are as well. Not just for the tomato info, but everything else you share from the wealth of your gardening knowledge. All that takes time, and I know it's a labor of love.

A Dawn garden groupie,

Barbara

Those are gorgeous tomatoes. I'm sorry for the loss of your plants. :(

Cathi,

Solarizing the soil involves covering it with very heavy clear plastic and letting the heat of the sun super-heat the soil underneath the plastic to kill off pathogens (and, as a bonus, weed seeds too). I'll find and link a description of how to do it.

Then, I'll come back in a little while and explain about a bag garden. My kitchen timer is about to 'ding' summoning me back to the jelly-making, and I must answer the 'ding'.

Jalapeno bacon is carried in several stores in Texas, most notably the H-E-B stores based, I think, out of southeast Texas. We found the H-E-B brand of jalapeno bacon at Central Market in Southlake, TX, on Sunday. You often can find it at specialty stores like Whole Foods or Wild Oats too.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: How To Solarize Your Soil

Cathi, my favorite cucumber way to eat cukes, other than pickles, is a "recipe" given to me by a much-beloved neighbor a decade or so ago. ( We loved these neighbors so much, we named kid #3 after them.) We call them "Nana's Cucumber's".

Peel and slice cukes 1/4" or so and mix in about equal parts of sugar and Miracle Whip (the ONLY reason to have MW in the house, if you ask me, a full-fledged mayo fanatic), and top with a glug of vinegar. Let sit for a day or so to work its magic and then chow down!

It's all so very exact, isn't it? LOL It's really just one of those things that you taste as you're going, until you find the right ratio for your tastebuds.

For summer squash, our favorite is "Zuke Goop". Slice the squash, add tomatoes and corn, salting to taste. Sometimes we add onions and garlic, sometimes not. Simmer until the squash is tender and top with a sprinkle of cheese. (We came up with this recipe when we lived in Kansas and could actually grow squash without the bugs beating us to them. LOL)

Diane

Ok Diane,
You started it! LOL! Here's one of my fave cuke recipes. Slice the nice greenish cukes on the thinnest blade of the grater so the slices are almost transparent.

This does make a lot of juice, so one needs to drain in a colander.

Then place in ice water to crisp for about a half hour, and drain again in the colander, (optional but nice).

Then, very very delicately season with raw apple cider vinegar, a little sugar and salt and black pepper.

The idea here is a delicate mix of the vinegar and sugar, not a take your breath away type my DS likes.

This goes well with a Hungarian Chicken Paprikash dish I love with sour cream gravy.

As for zukes, I adore zucchini fritters prepared in Mediterranean style with lemon and feta cheese and any kind of homemade yogurt as a side. In my case, Greek yogurt culture, homemade with cow's milk.

Gardens, gotta LOVE EM!

Barbara

Thanks for the recipes! Diane's seemed easiest, and it is my Monday today, so I am lazy. I have the MW/Sugar/vinegar mix stewing in the fridge right now. Mmm. I need to make some more fridge pickles and how could I forget tabouli?! I can use my parsley, cukes and tomatoes in that one!
Barbara, I'll work on yours later this week. How do you make your fritters? That sounds amazing.

Dawn, where I live, I am excited to have a Wal-Mart, so Petit Jean bacon from Ark will have to do for now. I will have to try that jalapeno bacon some day though. Thank you for the link. I'll start reading up on it as soon as I get some motivation. :)

Cathi

I think WalMart has jalapeno bacon also. I have seen it recently and I can't think of anywhere else I would have looked at bacon. I don't look very carefully, because I ALWAYS buy Wrights.

Cathi,

I didn't forget about the bag garden question. A bag garden is a quick-to-put-together, almost instant garden that you can put anywhere. I've put them right on top of bermuda grass by laying down a double layer or triple layer of heavy cardboard to smother the grass and putting the bags right on top of it. You lay out the bags, cut slits in the bottom for drainage, and cut open the top and plant directly into the soil in the bag. Be sure to mulch the bag garden to keep the heat from drying out/heating up the bags/plant roots.

Bag gardens are a great solution to disease-contaminated soil.

More detailed instructions can be found in the linked article.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: How To Build A Bag Garden

Dawn, thanks a bunch. That sounds easy enough to me. I noticed my neighbor did that, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I didn't like the look of the bag just laying there, but at least mulch will help.

Diane, that recipe was good! I was wary of so much sugar, I'm more of a savory girl, but I have already refilled it twice. How long can I re-use this before I dump and start fresh?

Thanks,

Cathi

Cathi, glad you liked it! I'm like you and not usually big in sweet recipes (other than occasional weird binges) but this stuff is like crack to me. I usually reuse the "juice" once before I start wondering what alien life forms are growing in it, maybe 3-ish days? I'm kind of freaky paranoid about stuff like that, though, so it may very well be fine longer.

Diane

I make coleslaw dressing with a cup of mayo, 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar, and 1 Tablespoon of sugar. That would probably be good on cukes. I also like it in a mix of broccoli, califlower, and onion.