Ding Dong the Possum is Dead! I Think?

I've been busy and on the road due to work the last few weeks and unable to do much in my garden. When I returned home and started to get back to work on my yards, I happened to chat with my neighbor and asked how his tomatoes were coming along since he was also having trouble with the possum. He explained that he had spotted the possum in his french drain a few weeks ago, had closed it off with mesh and had thrown in a few gopher pellets into the drain where his dog couldn't get at them. A few days later, he saw a dead possum in the road. He proudly told me that since then he has been harvesting plenty of tomatoes! Hmm.... On the tomato front, I have two ripe tomatoes on the vine and have been watching them closely. So far, no animal has come and eaten them, even though one of the tomatoes is outside my picket fence where the vine had grown over and is in plain view. It may be that I will be able to sample a few ripe tomatoes this fall after all! I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and hope that the dead possum was the one ravaging my garden as well. If so, my possum problem might be over.

I am astounded this week by the progress my garden is making. The chiles are starting to produce like mad. I have dozens of red scotch bonnet pods, a dozen yellow fatalli pods, more lemondrops than I can count and two plants of red, ripe pepperoncinis. It is high time that I started my harvesting efforts and starting to make salsas, pickles and powders.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought a water-bath canner for $17 and a jar of pickling salt. I still need a few more tools to beginning home canning, but I am looking forward to giving this a try. The red pepperoncinis will be my first pickling attempt. I have six half pint jars in the house and I think that this would be a good starting size for slices of peppers. I'm aiming for something that could go on a sandwich or on top of a salad.

The Possum Strikes Again!

Last night, my dog was growling at the backyard window during most of the night and I heard rustling and scraping noises. In the morning, I surveyed my tomato patch and sure enough, the possum had struck again. All of the ripe tomatoes were gone and the tomato plants were disturbed. Also, my single ripening corno de toro gallo pepper had been eaten, with only the seed mass left on the plant. My other pepper plants are either dead or dying. The corno de toro rosso was entirely eaten, stalks and all and the blushing beauty peppers that I had nursed through an entire winter are gone as well. The bed is a total loss.

I have not done any further work to this bed, but once my work schedule permits me, I'm going to remove all the tomato plants. They are starting to naturally die back now that their fruit has ripened and probably wouldn't be producing more than another month or two anyway. The heirloom tomatoes that I had selected had been beautiful. Large, meaty and perfect for making sauce. I am sorry that I will not get a chance to sample them this year. There must be a better way to grow tomatoes so that I don't have this sort of losses to contend with. I will have to do research this winter to discover a safer way to grow tomatoes and sweet bell peppers.

More Tomatoes Lost

When I went out to water my plants this afternoon, I was stunned to see that three more of my tomatoes were half eaten. Their pulpy mess was left on the vine to my disgust. The possum strikes again! I am beginning to see that I will not be able to harvest a single ripe tomato from my plants this year. The possum leaves the green ones behind, but as soon as the tomatoes are half ripe, it strikes again. There were two tomatoes left untouched, but I'm sure that this evening that they will be gone too. My idea of making homemade spaghetti sauce with garden tomatoes is going up in smoke.

I worked so hard to keep my produce from the critters of the area, but this new animal is hard to detain. At least it seems to be leaving my peppers and chiles alone...although if the possum ever ate one of my scotch bonnets, it would probably never touch a red fruit again! LOL I used galvanized mesh under the beds to keep the moles out, but what do I do to keep an animal out that can climb over fences and up trees? The only thing that I can think to do is either create a metal mesh over the plants, or try hanging my tomatoes in baskets next year, perhaps growing them upside down? Maybe this will be my last year of growing tomatoes? I'm simply not sure what to do.

Possum Woes

Summertime is always glorious for my chile plants. They thrive in the heat and lack of water and produce beautiful pods for my family to eat. The one I have pictured in this post is a "fish chile". It is the only variegated chile pepper that I know of and even the chiles have little white stripes. I haven't sampled a pod yet, but I'm eager to do so. This is one of my overwintered chiles and last year the plant never produced a single pod. I think that this year it has found itself and is going to surprise me.

I've been having a little trouble with theft in my garden over the past several weeks. The tomatoes and red bell peppers are being stolen by local possums. I've spoken to several of my neighbors, some as far away as five or six blocks and universally, everyone is complaining about losing their garden produce to the critters. My Red Corno de Toro was clipped to the ground by a possum, the three peppers on it taken. I am not sure if the plant is going to recover or not, but I'm very disappointed since this was one of my overwintered chiles from last year and I've had it a long time. At least it is a plant that I can replace next spring if need be, but I was looking forward to those sweet peppers this year. The yellow corno de toro also has pods and one is about ready to harvest. So far the animals have not been taking yellow colored tomatoes and peppers, so I have hope of actually getting to taste one of these peppers in my dinner this week. My gypsy frying peppers are starting to turn red and are in a section of my garden that the possums have left untouched, that might be what I use for the fajatas. Yellow and red peppers with onions, nothing is better.

My yellow tomatoes thus far have been untouched by the critters and I am starting to see two or three ripe fruits on the vine. Once I have enough, I'm going to turn them into a golden marinara sauce in my crockpot. My husband is a little uneasy about yellow spaghetti sauce, but I have assured him that the flavor is going to be well worth it. He's promised to give it a try.

Better Late than Never

I haven't watered my salsa garden in around a week. I was away at work for the weekend and came home with a cold, so I was not able to tend to my plants as I would have liked to. Thank goodness that chiles thrive on neglect! I was out with my water wand this afternoon and was astounded to see all the changes that have happened in my garden while I was away. Better late than never when it comes to water.

There were many chile pods to be seen. Lots of cherry bombs, just turning red. Kung Pao, most of which are a bright red and ready for harvest. Carmen Hybrid, a New Mexico style chile that I have not tried before. They are large and dark grassy green. The two fresno plants are covered in both green and red chiles, ready to be harvested. Tiny scotch bonnets forming on the tree like plant, still green and far from their final size. Chocolate Habaneros are also tiny and green.

I am excited by the possible harvest of this week, but I'm not sure what I'm going to use all this bounty in. I will have to start forming recipes for next week....

Summertime Weeding

I've been neglecting my salsa garden other than making sure that the plants are getting regular waterings either by hand or via my soaker hose system due to my heavy work schedule. I realized that the weeds in the gravel path were getting out of hand and that my beds had a few volunteer weeds among the chile plants. So I spent a good 30 minutes weeding the paths and my beds. I also did a little maintenance on the chiles. I broke off dead stems, removed dried up spent chiles and coaxed stems back inside of the metal cages that surround each plant. The plants are looking quite healthy and happy in my little side yard salsa garden.

Most of my overwintered chiles have pods that will be turning ripe in the next week or two. The new transplants are still growing and only a few have a pod or two on them. I'm delighted to report that my overwintered cherry bomb chile has recovered from its transplant shock and not only is sporting new leaf growth, but is starting to produce new pods! I may yet have an appetizer tray of stuffed cherry bombs this fall. On the flip side, the blushing beauty overwintered pepper plant has definitely failed. I removed the dried up stem and the cage as I was weeding.

The tomatoes are shooting up like rockets and I think that I have spied my first semi-ripe tomato deep within the leaves. So far, the larger cages are containing the tomatoes and keeping the fruit from touching the soil where insects might damage them. I'm looking forward to making my first crockpot full of homemade spaghetti sauce this summer.

First Tomatoes

My heirloom tomatoes are off to a good start, probably due to the extremely hot weather we've been experiencing in the last few weeks. Since I planted them into the rich soil of the raised bed, they have grown about a foot taller. The cages are doing well in supporting the plants and keeping them vertical, but I have to wonder if I bought large enough cages for the plants. I'll have to wait and see.

I'm surprised that I already have a few tomatoes forming on the vine and look forward to turning them into homemade pasta sauce in my crockpot this summer. I love heirloom tomatoes for sauce because of the lower acid content of the fruit. The tomatoes in the picture are paste tomatoes.