Your property looks beautiful!
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Thank you! Itās a work in progress. Summer #1 for us here.
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I love the show zinnias put on. The bonus is all the bees, butterflies, etc that I get to enjoy watching as they feed off of them too.
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Tomatoes are faithfully ripening and providing me with the main ingredient for one of my absolute favorite things, fresh summer salsa. The garden onions, green peppers and jalapenos also get incorporated. I am blessed to have been introduced to the idea of making my own salsa years ago when one of my sisters shared some of hers. Iāll generally can some too but unfortunately the heating process changed the product. Itās still better than any canned salsa I know of but fresh salsa is a whole different level of goodness.
I also love simple tomato sandwiches. A couple slices of beefsteak tomato on toasted bread with Hellmanās mayonnaise, a bit of sliced onion, salt and pepper. Mmmmmm,mmmmm, good.
Just recently I tried something else. A mini tomato treat. I took standard triscuit crackers, put a dollop of mayo on them, a slice of tomato cut to fit and sprinkled salt and pepper on top. Again, a simple taste bud pleasure.
Ok, off to snack on some chips and salsa. This evening Iāll visit the garden to gather more ingredients for the next batch. Enjoy them while they are in season.
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This all sounds delicious! 
Iāll add my new fav anytime meal/snack:
Toasted sourdough. Spread with some butter or olive oil. Big dollop good cottage cheese spread on too. Thinly sliced garden tomatoes. Coarse salt and pepper.
That is all. Itās delicious!
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My tomato plants are not doing well. Cold followed by heat wave. Not good for them.
Iām right there with you. Iāll be buying most of
Mine from the farmers market unless they took a significant turn for the better this week
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I have a ton of tomatoes but they are not ripening. Iāve gotten to yellow and theyāve totally stopped.
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I also use the tomatoes and serrano/jalapeno peppers from my garden to make pico de gallo (with store-bought onions and limes).
It is hard to beat garden-fresh tomatoes in anything!
My tomato plants are starting to suffer from wilt; and most have some green tomatoes on them which I doubt will make it to full ripeness on the vine. I most likely will use them to make some green tomato relish.
Thatās what happened to me last year with wilt and unripened tomatoes. I ended up slow roasting the green tomatoes with garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, basil and oregano. It was incredibly good and it also froze well.
I ended up harvesting my yellow tomatoes and they were delicious. Now some are starting to ripen though so there is still hope for some red tomatoes at some point.
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My tomatoes arenāt great this year either. H harvested a big bunch of Romas today and Iām going to make this tomorrow. We have friends coming over for dinner. I peel the tomatoes (NYTimes recipe doesnāt, but itās from a Pierre Franey recipe and he peeled the tomatoes.)
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I finally have one tomato that looks like it will ripen soon.
Meanwhile, Iāve been harvesting a bunch of cucumbers, and zucchini took off, too. Peach tree has been vandalized by raccoons, unfortunately, and will have to be severely trimmed next spring. Netting on the tree helped save the fruit though. Also, Desert King figs are starting to ripen! Had some juicy ones for dessert last night.
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Have you tried grating the tomatoes for that recipe? Looks YUM.
You probably already know but in case anyone doesnāt, a tomato picked green will ripen just by sitting around. I had a critter knock several off that were immature. They ripened nicely over the next few weeks.
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I havenāt tried that. Would you remove the skins to grate it or just leave them?
Iāve seen people grate them often for sauce. The way I understand it, you cut the tomato in half, hand scoop out the seeds (so you preserve the juice) and then use the skin to grasp the tomato for grating. Basically when the tomato half is finished being grated you will be down to the skin which you can then toss.
This video shows this technique:
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Two cherry tomatoes beat the about to be ripened Black Krim tomato to the finish line!
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Itās been a dismal tomato year for me (and others around here). And the zuc and squash are also not loving all the heat.
But I was happy to come back from vacation last week (with neighbor kid hired for watering duty) and find that my flowers were doing well.
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Geraniums are pretty hardy! Seem to survive dry or wet conditions. Do you still have any of your momās geraniums??
Thanks for remembering. Yes, all of those pink geraniums (and a few more in back yard) go back to the plants my mom had inside at her apartment in 2020 before she died. She brought them inside from my yard, where she had gardened 20+ years. Each year I bring inside for winter, propagate new plants.
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