How I Peel a Tomato

Ok so if you know me, you know I'm kinda a picky eater.  I've gotten much better over the years but there's still a lot I don't eat.  Most of my pickiness is due to textures.  I'm not a big fan of any skin on a fruit or veg, I almost always prefer the skin off (except for potatoes -  I love the skins on potatoes, but even that I didn't like growing up).  Tomatoes I can eat with the skins but I prefer not.  So I was making salsa the other day and I decided I would peel my tomatoes to give a more uniform texture.  I don't boil my tomatoes, thats too much work for me (because I'm impatient and a little lazy).  I peel them much like some peel oranges or nectarines.  I score the edges in slices.  Then peel off the skin from each slice, they come off in sections very easily.

Score in sections

Peel from top down one section at a time

Fully peeled

Squish out the juice and the seeds into a bowl

 What else is great about this way to peel a tomato is that is also makes it easy to deseed and separate all the flesh.  If you've scored it deep enough it has created slices into the juicy part.  Simply hold the tomato over a bowl and slowly squeeze.  (unfortunately I didn't take pics of this but I will next time and I'll amend this post).  The juice and the seeds will squeak through the cuts in the tomato.  Then you can slice the tomato as you usually would and it will just be the flesh.

Yummy Pico de Gallo style salsa that I made with some of the new thiner Tostitos.

I am linking up this post with Tuesday Garden Party over at An Oregon Cottage, go and check out what other people are doing with their garden goodies!

Septembers garden.

My garden is winding down but there's still lots to do. For the next two weeks it's final harvesting and trimming. Then pulling out plants and readying the soil for next spring and planting some things to overwinter. 

Here's what the garden looks like now. I've got a couple of groups of spinach growing. Not doing the best but enough to add to other greens in a small salad every now and then. 

There are still a couple of carrots. And I haven't harvested any of the parsnips yet, waiting till after a frost (I'm curious about how they'll turn out).  Their stalks are much bigger than I would have thought. I imagined them to look much like a carrot top. 

There's still several eggplants on the plants. I have pinched off all remaining flowers so all the energy and nutrients will go into growing the current fruit. They have definitely slowed down. 

There are still a food number of tomatoes that need to ripen. I am hoping most will ripen on the plant but I'll take the ones that don't in to ripen inside. I have trimmed back the plants considerably. 

The hot pepper section of my garden has been taken over by cayennes. There are still a couple of banana peppers, several cherry bomb and a bunch of habaneros but the Cajun bells and sweet bells are done. 

The leeks are going crazing. Fighting for space and light. I really learned my lesson  about planting less is more. They need their space. 

My fall lettuces are doing great. Planted about a month ago they are perfect size for salads right now. 

The fall beets still have a ways to go. 

One of the Brussel sprout plants are doing well. The other I might give up on and take out. 

Here's my late planted kohl robi. I'm not sure if this is going to make it. 

My fall planted radishes are coming nicely. Hope they taste yummy. 

This is the one remaining broccoli plant. It's still producing side shoots.

The sweet slicing english cucumbers are still going strong. There's several fruits growing on the vines and even new flowers. 

The herb planters are also doing well. Oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, basil, cilantro, flat parsley, Curley parsley, rosemary, and peppermint. 

I've got to trim these and root some for a winter indoor herb garden. 

Hot Peppers & Cross Pollination.

Today I'm linking up with Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.  This series has people post on a variety of garden topics including what's growing/blooming, tips, ideas, progress, harvests, recipes, before/afters or how-tos.  I  love connecting with other gardeners and seeing what is happening.  I find it very motivational.  You should check some of the posts in the series this week. (click on the button to the left).

On to the POST:  

Ok so I will be the first to admit that I over planted hot peppers this year.  We are getting tons of hot peppers coming off all the plants though!  Can't wait to make my own hot sauce!  They are definitely too close together.  But I have read that to avoid cross pollination different plants need to be 100's of feet apart.  So I guess I should just get used to this because I don't have that much space and I want to keep planting different kinds of peppers.  This year I planted 6 cayenne plants, 2 habanero plants, 1 cherry bomb, 1 cajun bell and 2 banana pepper plants.  I know that's a lot of plants in a small area (as you can see below).

The first to produce fruit were the cherry bomb then the cajun bell and the banana peppers, then the cayenne peppers and finally the habanero.  We noticed a couple weeks ago that one of the cayenne pepper plants is growing 2 distinctly different shaped peppers.  The normal long skinny sometimes curled cayenne pepper (B), and what looks very much like a jalapeño pepper (A).  We think the cayenne has cross pollinated with the cherry bomb creating a hybrid shape.

Here is a picture of the cherry bomb, as you can see it is short and wide with a darker skin colour than the cayenne.  We think this is the best candidate for what has cross pollinated.  In the background you can see the cajun bell plant.

 We also have a very short and stumpy cajun bell on our hands.  Seen in the centre of the photo below. It started to turn colour fairly quickly and was actually eaten yesterday bright red (this photo was taken about a week ago).  The stumpy pepper tasted like a cajun bell.   We are not sure this one is result of cross pollination or just a runt of the plant?  Any ideas?

The last issue we are having with our peppers is curling leaves on the habaneros.  It's just the top leaves and I'm not sure why this is happening.  There was one week where the weather fluctuated quite a bit from really hot to very mild.  This could be the cause but we are not sure.  The plants are still flowering and fruiting so were not overly worried but just curious.  

Has anyone else had interesting cross pollination in their garden?  

Or

Have you had curling leaves on pepper plants, and what do you think the cause is?