SALSA

On Monday, the 12th of September, the day following our day on the lake wild ricing, we harvested all our salsa ingredients.  What's missing from the picture are the tomatillos and I'm so sorry because they are so unique looking.  They remind me of Chinese paper lanterns.  I thought we we just harvesting but we looked at our schedules for the rest of the week and, well, tonight is the night to make salsa!

After a bit of blanching, chopping, food processing and more chopping we had red and green salsa!  Now what do we do with all this salsa?  What we froze was based on the number of available containers to freeze it in and the rest I tucked away in the fridge and canned Wednesday morning before going to work.  That is one really nice thing about working late on Wednesday, I've got the morning to start some project which means even with all that time to get ready for work, I'm always running late because I'm in the middle of something!

Here is the "cold frame."  Dave planted tomatoes, peppers, onions and lettuce.

Other than quite a bit of early lettuce and onion greens, this is what we got. One, rather large and red tomato.

We're not quite sure what to do next year.  With all the effort involved, that is one very "dear" tomato!

Wednesday, September 14, 2011.  Our first real frost.

I thought the pattern on the chicken coop was pretty.  Just minutes later, as the sun came over the treetops, this was gone. 

Below you can see the sun in the treetops and what we dressed in the garden to protect it from the dropping temps.  The next night, the 15th, it all froze.  We harvested all that was left, Dave dug the potatoes, I pulled up the bean vines. There were a few red and orange tomatoes and lots of green tomatoes that survived under their shelter which will ripen in the house.  There is a long winter ahead and still much to do before the snow comes but that can on the post is a reminder of planting seedlings in the spring.  It's only 8 months away!