Pesto - it's not just for basil anymore

We had a bumper crop of cilantro this week. Most of it's in the flower bed in the front yard - my best guess is I reused some potting soil that grew last year's cilantro? The cilantro I was actually trying to grow isn't doing nearly as well. Further proof that more effort does not equal better results.

First I made pico de gallo, using store bought tomatoes (gasp) as mine are still blossoming. I did harvest an onion to add to my bushels of cilantro. Served it with bean and cheese taquitos.

I was still left with a TON of cilantro so I made a pesto of cilantro, walnuts, lemon juice, garlic, olive oil and salt. I stuffed a chicken breast with provolone, then coated it with the pesto. Pretty impressive concoction for a vegetarian, don't you think?

How does a 3 year old's garden grow?

My three year old decided to fertilize some of my seedlings. With toothpaste. As you can imagine, that didn't end well.

ETA: sooner than I thought

As of yesterday we have blossoms on one of the tomato plants!!! It's about 3 feet tall, growing in a pot on the deck. I'm leaving town for 3 weeks in July, but maybe there's hope I'll get a tomato or two before leaving town.

The raised bed filled with peppers is being devoured by bugs. I'm debating between horrific chemicals and ordering thousands of ladybugs. As a back up, I'm still growing peppers indoors (in the bathtub, of course). Once they get nice and big I may replace some of the ones in the garden.

Learn from my mistakes

Mistakes I made when putting my plants in the ground-

For the first four tomatoes, i didn't keep track of which varieties I put in! I should have just thrown them out and started over, but instead I'll just be surprised. And maybe have a lot of one type and none of several others.

I put them in the day before it poured rain for 24 hours straight. Some didn't survive the beating. Good thing I have 50 more understudies ready to fill in.

One week after planting, it got so cold at night that the next county over had a frost advisory! I always plant too early, which can stunt their growth. The seedling were just sooo huge though, and I was so anxious.

A lot of the plants are quite close together. I had a lot more varieties of peppers and tomatoes than I had space. I'm hoping with staking and/or cages, I can make the magic happen. I'm also planning to selectively reduce tomato plants if needed.

Stay tuned for more page turning (mouse scrolling?) stories of life on the farm.

Staff turnover

Farmer Nacho is leaving me. He's going to be summering in Southeast Asia, leaving me with a big sombero to fill.

My master plan definitely included having him around conme August to supervise our salsa production. Instead, he has only a few weeks to teach me how to properly hold a knife as well as can salsa.

I picture many lessons via Skpye in my future, as well as a severed finger or two and a nice case of Botulism.