It’s Salsa Time!

Jason and I LOVE homemade salsa! Last summer we were spoiled by Max and April with their jar after jar of homemade salsa. We couldn’t get enough of it. Their salsa was proudly made from fresh ingredients from their own garden. To tell you the truth, the hope to make our own salsa is what really motivated us to plant a garden in the first place. Thanks to the hot summer sun, our tomatoes grew in abundance! We couldn’t have been more pleased with the success of our tomato plants. We only planted three (a little too close together), but they grew so big they started taking over the front of the lawn...outgrowing the garden area. Over the summer months, we have harvested around 120 tomatoes and have made over 18.5 quarts of homemade salsa! We stole the salsa recipe from Max and April...and let me tell you, it is some of the best salsa I have ever had. A typical “batch” of salsa we would make would include:

Around 30 tomatoes
¾ of a red onion
1 anaheim pepper
1 jalapeno
½ of a green pepper
Handful of cilantro
Large spoonful of minced garlic
Juice from 2 limes
Cumin to taste
Salt
Pepper

Each time, our salsa would turn out a little differently...but that was part of the fun! The other part of the fun was sharing it with others. 

Our first tomato of the summer

Our tomato plants by the end of the summer

Making our salsa:

The whole process put Charlie to sleep...

Salsa was not the only thing our garden provided...we had plenty of tomato-mozzarella-basil sandwiches and pizza! Yum!

We not only enjoyed tomatoes and basil from our garden this year, but we also enjoyed spinach, green beans, red and white onions, one jalapeno pepper, and two watermelons. To say the least, we had quite a fun first-year garden experience!