Mango Salsa Recipe
I am starting to get some cherry tomatoes turning red but not enough to make salsa so yet again so I decided to make some Mango Salsa. It is great to eat on tortilla chips the same you would for regular salsa or black bean corn salsa. One of my favorite things to do with is as a topping to blackened salmon (salmon grilled with dusting of Cajun seasoning)
CVG Mango Salsa Recipe
- 3 mangos
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 small onion
- green onion
- 5 sprigs of cilantro
- juice of one lemon (or lime)
- 1 jalapeno pepper (seeded)
- sugar
Directions: Finely chop 1 mango (or blend in blender/food processor) this will create a base for the salsa. Coarsely chop remaining mangos, onion, and green onions to have more defined texture and add to bowl. Finely chop garlic, cilantro, and seeded jalapeno pepper and add to mixture. Squeeze in juice of lemon into bowl and mix thoroughly. Let sit for 10 minutes and add sugar until salsa does not have a spicy aftertaste (normally 2-3 teaspoons)
Now if you really like the spice you can leave the seeds in and/or skip the sugar but for the blackened salmon it give a good contrast to the spicy meat and people just are not usually expecting fruit to be spicy.
I can proudly say with the exception of mangos, lemons, and sugar the remaining ingredients came right out of my garden.
Tags: cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, pepper plants, salsa garden, tomato plants, vegetables
Doing recon at the local farmers market
15.3 years ago corn, farmers market, garden planning, garlic bulbs
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to infiltrate a local farmers market to gain intelligence to help aid your personal garden.
Sure, the farmers market is a great place to find some fresh food you can’t or didn’t have time/space to grow in your garden. It is also a great place to get seeds/starts for your garden. It is also a great resource to figure out how various fruits/vegetables grow in your area.
Even if you are growing everything you want/need in your own garden a quick stop at your farmers market can help you check out your competition and see for example in my case, “hey their garlic grew just as bad as mine this year.”
This is also a good time to try out new fruits and vegetables you are thinking of growing next year. There is nothing worse than growing a bed full of arugula and figure out at that point you hate the stuff. If you are lucky enough you might even get a meal and some seeds to plant with next year depending on you seed saving ability.
Now as always you don’t want to blow your cover while doing surveillance, so make sure you have a good cover store. In my case I used a few people known as “my wife and daughters” to appear less conspicuous. You can even use techniques of taking a picture of your “daughter” to get some recon picture of their products for further analysis.
In the end it looks like my little spy helpers had a good time and we even contributed a little to the local farmers economy and got the secret ingredient to CVG Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe (ok, it was corn).
This post will self destruct in 10 seconds (sorry had to say it)
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, outdoor plants, salsa garden, vegetables
Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe
15.3 years ago corn, peppers, recipe, salsa
My jalapeños peppers have been growing like crazy and I have had to start harvest to prevent the plants from stop producing. Given my tomatoes are still green I have been itching to do something with them, I decided to make some corn salsa. Given I couldn’t find a recipe that matched the ingredients I had on hand I decided to make my own.
CVG Black Bean and Corn Salsa Recipe
- 2 ears of corn (1-1/2 cups frozen corn)
- 1 small onion (chopped)
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/4 cup sliced green onions
- 2-3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- 1/4 cup white vinegar
- 3 T sugar
- 1 chopped seeded jalapeño
- 1 chopped unseeded jalapeño
- 1-1/2 cups black beans (canned)
Directions: Cook corn for 2 minutes in boiling water and submerge in ice cold ice water. This helps stop the corn from cooking any more and also make handling while cutting the kernels a little more pleasant. Cut off kernels and add to bowl. Chop/slice remaining ingredients and add to bowl, stir, and refrigerate and serve chilled.
If you like your salsa a little spicier leave both pepper seeded.
Tags: cilantro, garden seeds, garlic bulbs, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, salsa garden, tomato plants
How to save pea seeds from your garden
15.4 years ago harvest, peas, seed saving, seed storing, seeds
Most of the seeds I purchase, I am able to keep for at least a few seasons before running out. The one exception to this rule is peas, which I always have to buy each season. To save myself a couple dollars next year after I had my fill of peas from my garden I let quite a few mature which I will reuse for seeds this fall and next spring.
Out of all the seeds I have collected peas definitely are the easiest by far. If you want to go with the ultra lazy easy approach just let them dry on the vine until the pod no longer has any moisture and the peas are loose in the pod. You even can store them in the pod and crack them open for planting. One disadvantage to this technique is the peas could end up getting enough airflow and could result in some moldy peas.
To be on the safer side here is a more conservative approach:
- Pick pods when fine is yellow. The basic idea at this point the plant is not really providing anything to the pods so you might as well take on the responsibility
- If the pod still feels a little moist store it in a dry location. If the pod feels dry using a small knife carefully cut a small slit lengthwise into the pod being careful to not to injure the peas.
- Once the peas get all shrived up and look like what you planted to begin with store in a cold dry location (jar in the refrigerator)
Now you have seeds ready for fall planting (or spring planting next year) If you go a little crazy with your dried peas you can also add them to soups or stews during the winter time.
Tags: garden seeds, outdoor plants
How to save spinach seeds from your garden
15.4 years ago harvest, seed saving, spinach
Growing up in rural Washington state, the job market was a somewhat lacking for those under the age of 16. Given this at the age of 14-15 I was sucked into the attractive and lucrative career of spinach rouging, also known as “The Worst Summer Camp Ever” The basic premise of the job was to walk down endless “female rows” in the hot sun and destroying any male spinach plants. For every 12 “female rows” there were 4 “male rows” of higher quality spinach plants which were desired for pollination. So in other words I was facilitating the hybridization of spinach plants.
Hoping to keep these memories behind me when I decided to grow spinach seeds this year, I realized I actually learned something which I thought I would share. In my case I am open pollinating so no rouging required though it is good to still know how to identify the boys and the girls since no matter how hard you try those boys will not be creating any seeds.
The plant on the left is a male plant, you can identify it by the little yellow balls under the leaves. As you may have guessed the one on the right is a female plant which only have green balls under the leaves. Not to over complicate things there is also monacious plants which are basically both male and female which I would normally just pull up since it will make things easier during harvest time.
Spinach seeds for the most part will wind pollinate on their own but if you garden is somewhat protected from winds it may be helpful to flick the male plants every week or so to help out the process.
Once the plants turn yellow go ahead and pull them up. If they are males throw them in the compost. If they are females hang them in a dark dry place. I chose to hang mine off my mountain bike’s brake cable.
After a few weeks of drying you should see the seeds brown and dry just like they came out of the package you planted them with. Store the seeds in a dry cool place (jar in refrigerator) and you should have a great stock of seeds for the next year.
Tags: compost, garden seeds, outdoor plants
How to grow seeds in your garden
15.4 years ago cheap, seed saving, seeds
Because of a strange heat wave we had in June, I seem to be growing more seeds than vegetables this year. Now as they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. In that spirit I am planning on increasing the number of plants I will allow to completely go to seed this year.
I have always saved cilantro seeds, the first time it was almost an accident my daughter liked the pretty white flowers and after neglecting my garden at the end of the summer I had perfectly dried cilantro seeds on the plant. Free and renewable supply of seeds, what could be better. If I don’t have you convinced here are some more reasons:
Cheap: You really can’t beat free. With the price of seeds increasing depending on the variety of seeds you grow this could save you a considerable amount of money per year.
Easy: The creation of seeds of seeds is a completely natural process that has been happening for millions of years. In many cases you can do practically nothing other than harvest the seeds before the birds do.
Natural selection: With a little attention you can hand select only your best plants to harvest seeds from. If the plant survived to produce seeds it has to be at least a little disease tolerant and if you intentionally pick plants that bolted early you can also establish your own slow bolting variety.
Limited availability: Even with all the resources on the internet your favorite seed company may not always carry your favorite varieties or in some cases just a few seeds might be hard to come by. If you play your cards right you may even be able to make a few bucks selling your rare seeds.
Seed Exchange: If you collect seeds you more than likely will get more seeds than you need for the next 2-3 years from a single plant. This is a great supply to use for local or mail seed exchanges. Not only are you supplying someone else with seeds they need but also adding seeds to your collection which you can harvest and repeat the process again.
Growing sprouts: If you are paying for seeds growing sprouts for some plant varieties can be pretty expensive…unless your seeds are free. This is a good healthy way to use up some of those extra seeds you can’t get rid of any other way.
This year I am planning on harvesting spinach, pea, carrot, and radish seeds (along with my previous onions and cilantro) so stay tuned for more details.
Tags: birds, cheap, cilantro, garden seeds, outdoor plants, vegetables
