Garden Tuesday- Garden Update

So in my previous post today I am kinda in  the process of moving from my home in Lockhart to my boyfriends parents house in Buda. My thoughts and plans for a fall garden are no more. I will not be having a fall garden this year maybe next year but for sure not this year. There is just to much going on right now! 

As for my plans for a spring/summer garden in 2015 I have no clue at this point if I will be having a garden next year. If I do decide to have a garden I am unsure as to where it will be. I might still have it at my current location because this years garden took very limited work and effort so I will be able to make it work with going over there once a week.

My Current Garden!

Two weeks ago I said that my tomatoes were dying and that I was going to pull them up and if your follow my Instagram you will know that I did indeed pull up all my tomato plants.

Left is before, right is after. Comment below if you can find the chicken! :D

I still have my basil, jalapenos, banana peppers,  poblanos and tomatillos still going strong. My chocolate mint and strawberries are dead. I did have a chance to pick anything from my garden this past week and I probably wont be able to this week either.

I'm sorry that this post is all over the place. :) I might not be able to blog as often as I should be but I promise I have not forgotten about you guys. Right now the best places to stay up to date with me is through Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Munchie Monday- Better Than Restaurant Style Salsa

My boyfriend says the best way to find out if a Mexican restaurant is any good is by the taste of their salsa. If you don't like the taste of their salsa then you might as well walk out. This salsa is to me and my boyfriend is the best salsa we have tasted.

Ingredients:

1 can of whole peel tomatoes (28 oz)

½ a bundle of cilantro

4 jalapenos

1 clove of garlic

½ small onion

pinch of salt and pepper

*Optional*

1 Tomatillo 

Directions:

1. Drain the tomatoes but keep the juice. Pour the tomatoes into your blender.

2. Add cilantro, salt and pepper, garlic, onion, jalapenos (with the stems cut off) and my secret ingredient a tomatillo. The tomatillo will also make the salsa more green in color then it would if you don't add it.

Remember the tomatillo is optional.

3. This is the part that is a bit more up to you. I personally like my salsa more chunky so I use the blender setting 'chop' until its as chunky or smooth as I like it. Also you remember that I had you guys keep the tomato juice if its to spicy when you taste it add a little of the juice and a pinch of salt.

Now you guy have some yummy salsa to snack on or have it as a whole meal! :)

The little dish is from Walmart only $1! :)

I hope you guys enjoy this salsa as much as I do. Let me know what you guys think about it  either on  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram  or just by commenting below! :)

Garden Tuesday- Heat Kills

Well the temperature here I think is killing my tomatoes already. The leaves are turning brown and falling off. I still water it about every other day so it is still getting plenty of water. I still have tomatoes that are going to get ripe soon though. 

My jalapenos, poblanos and tomatillos are still doing great! haven't gotten much off of them but I should be getting more within a week or two.

Garden Haul:

 This week I didn't get much but I did find 9 EGGS in a corner of my garden! LOL Silly chickens! :)

Weekly Tip:

Provide shade! I have a big tree by my garden that provides some shade and cools the garden some, but being in Texas that only works so much!

How do you garden? Show me by tagging me on Instagram or tweeting me or posting on my Facebook page

Munchie Monday- Family Dish

This week I'm sharing with you guys a dish that has been passed down through my boyfriends family. His abuelita (grandma) has passed this to his mom, his mom to him and him to me. Now I'm sharing it with you guys! Enjoy! :)

Beef Enchiladas

Ingredients:

My boyfriend thought this looked cool LOL!

1lb Ground beef

2 Roma tomatoes

1-1 1/2 cup chopped cilantro (about half a bundle)

1-1 1/2 cup chopped onion

1/4 teaspoon garlic salt (we like to add a little extra)

1/4 teaspoon steak seasoning

1/5 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground cumin

3 cups pinto beans

oil

corn tortillas

Directions:

1. Brown ground beef, while its browning add cumin, salt, steak seasoning and garlic salt.

This is when it's cooked down some.

2. Drain ground beef. Add cilantro, onion and tomatoes and cook with the ground beef for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Don't forget to stair and it will cook down so if it looks like a lot don't worry.

It may not look good but its delicious!

3. Put the beans on to boil. You know that they are ready when they aren't hard anymore. Take about 2/3-1/2 of the entire pot drained and and them to the ground beef mixture and mash them with the mixture.

We like using cast-iron skillets!

4. Pour oil in a small skillet about half full. Heat oil up on medium-high heat. Fry 1 tortilla at a time for 10-20 seconds on each side. Shake off extra oil with a non-fried tortilla.

I had the flash on the aren't as greasy as the picture shows.

5. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of the ground beef mixture in a tortilla, roll and set on a serving platter and form a pyramid with each enchiladas to keep them warm.

Our snack! Just the ground mixture on a slice of bread.

6. Serve with shredded cheese and or the green sauce on top with rice and the remaining beans on the side. These will make quite a few the most we made was like 24+. They taste good as leftovers!

Green Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 bundle (1-1 1/2 cup)Cilantro

2 Large Tomatillos

1/2 Onion

2 Roma tomatoes
3 large Jalapenos
Garlic
Salt

Directions:

1.  Place all items in a medium sauce pan and boil till tender.

2. Take each item out and place in a blender. Try not to get any of  the water, a little is okay but you don't want little to no water!

3. Add one clove of garlic and a pinch or two of salt. Liquefy it in the blender. This sauce is NOT suppose to be chunky at all its suppose to be smooth.

I hope you enjoy this traditional Mexican meal! Let me know how yours come out by tweeting me, tagging  on Instagram or posting on my Facebook page.

Garden Tuesday-Oops Wrong Ones!

Welcome back to garden Tuesday! If you guys remember in my Garden Tuesday post I had mentioned  that I had two Large Red Tomato plants....well they aren't those tomatoes! When I first started the seeds I had a little greenhouse that my mom got for Christmas and the seeds did great in there BUT, it was sitting outside one day and the wind knocked it over and all the seedlings got mixed up! I tried to put them back where I thought they belonged...well looks like I didn't succeed at that LOL.

So the plants that I thought were Large Red Tomato plants were actually one Pierce's Pride tomato which I bought on Heirloom Seeds, but I can't find it on there anymore. The second one is Rouge D' Irak Tomato.

I have not actually tasted either tomato yet, but I will let you guys know how they taste in next weeks blog.

I have gotten quite a few tomatoes that grasshoppers have eaten almost all the way. The grasshoppers have eaten some leaves off of my jalapenos, poblanos, basil and even my tomatillos. I use no pesticide what so ever but if any of you guys know of a inexpensive organic type of pesticide please let me know.

Once again this week I got quite a few jalapenos and tomatillos. I also got a handful of Black Cherry tomatoes (not pictured)

Garden tip of the week:

When planning your garden give your plants plenty of room from each other. If you don't do that you will have to climb and search for the produce.

That's all for now folks. I would love to see what your gardens look like tag/follow me on Instagram.

xoxo
Rita!

Garden Tuesday- Welcome to my garden!

Hi everyone and welcome to Garden Tuesday! My garden is a cinder block raised bed garden with a mixture of sandy loam topsoil and mushroom compost. I really like this soil because it holds the moister in and i can go longer between watering's. The plants seem to be doing excellent in this type of soil and growing crazy! It seems like I am out there pruning the plants every 3-4 days LOL!

 I have six tomato plants in this years garden. Two of them are Black Cherry tomatoes that I got from a local green house. They aren't really black they're more of a purplish reddish color. I haven't gotten any of them off them plants yet although i did last year and they were amazing. I also have two plants I started from seeds called Large Red Tomato...I'm not kidding that's what they are called. I got them from here at Heirloom Gardner. The last pair are just beefsteak tomatoes that I also got from the same local green house. 

Jalapenos almost ready to pick.

I also have like 10 jalapeno plants and six poblano pepper plants that I got from the green house. The jalapenos are doing really well I've already gotten a bunch of peppers off of the plants. The poblanos are doing well it takes them longer to produce peppers then the jalapenos, so I'm just now getting  peppers on the plants. 

Some people would advise you not to plant anything that's spicy near tomatoes, mint, watermelon or anything else like that because they will have a spicy taste. I have never had ANY issue with this happening but never say never. You can try it one year and if you get other things that become spicy just arrange things differently next year.

Tomaillo jungle of the right lol.

I have only two banana pepper plants that I also got from the green house. They are doing really well last week I got like 10 peppers of each of the plants and I wish I took a picture of the plants covered in them. In the holes of the cinder blocks in front of the banana peppers I have one basil plant, one strawberry plant, and a chocolate mint. The basil is HUGE and it just bloomed so it has these pretty white flowers on it. I've cut a few leaves from the basil and used them in spaghetti and chicken parmesan and, it gives them a extra amazing taste!I've gotten a handful of strawberries of my plant. I did have like three other plants but they randomly died over a two week period and I have no clue why. If any of y'all have a possible reason why let me know because I love strawberries and I want to plant more but I don't want them to all die.

Top left is Banana pepper, top right is Chocolate Mint and bottom is Basil.

Now on to favorite plant this year...the chocolate mint! This is probably my favorite mint I have ever grown. It was a faint smell and taste of chocolate but it's a sweet mint and I add a sprig or two to my pitcher of ice tea and it adds a little bit of sweetness but not a whole lot. It still tastes really really good!

The last type of plants I have are six tomatillos. If you aren't to familiar with them I know that they are used in some sauces and salsas used in Mexican cooking other than that I don't know what they are used for. Tomatillos are a cousin of tomatoes and are grown the same way (which I didn't know till a few weeks ago :/ oops). That's why they look like a baby jungle lol because I didn't use tomato cages to grow them in. Also they are suppose to be grown 3ft apart which i planted them like maybe a foot apart oops, but I learned for my mistake and they will be done differently next year.

Left are tomaillo and right are jalapenos

I'm also going to include a little tip for any of y'all to use.

• Get a lot of tomato cages. They come in handy for tomatoes, tomaillos, heck you can probably grow cucumbers and beans on them.