Summer Garden Notes, August 10, 2015

I'm down to 4 tomato plants still in the ground, and a huge pile of tomatoes in the house needing some attention.  This weekend I made a new recipe, a "Rotel" type canned tomatoes, to use in the cheese dip we all love so much. This called for poblano peppers instead of jalapeno.  I had plenty of those from the garden, too.  I'm looking forward to trying these out sometime soon.

Next to deal with the pile of jalapenos that needed attention.  I canned these as rings.  I've put up 12 pints of these so far this summer, and they'll all be used up by Christmas, I predict.

A check on the elderberry wine -- its still muddy, with a nice layer of sediment at the bottom.  Only a few little bubbles showing up.  Back to waiting....

I planted more seeds for the fall garden during the weekend.

My favorite new green, kale.  I'm in love with it for salads:
Scarlet Kale - Seed Savers Exchange
Dwarf Siberian Kale - Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Blue Curled Scotch Kale - SeedsNow
Premier Kale - SeedsNow

I've had the worst luck with spinach, so I'm planting quite a few in hopes that a few will survive:
Bloomsdale Spinach - American Seed
Matador Viking Spinach - SeedsNow
Winter Giant Spinach - SeedsNow
Morris Heading Collard Greens - SeedsNow - My first try with collards.

 Three kinds of Swiss Chard, but only a few plants of each:
Rainbow Swiss Chard - Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard - Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Luculus Swiss Chard - American Seed

And finally today I made seeds mats with the lettuce seeds that I'm planning to put out in the garden in a few weeks. All of these seeds came from SeedsNow:
Tango
Lollo Rosa
Crisphead
Burgandy Boston
Tom Thumb - these were free seeds from SeedsNow.  They always include a freebie with their orders.
Little Gem 

Some of the seeds are already coming up in the greenhouse!  We're hearing there may be a chance of some rain in mid-week, and we're saying our prayers.  It's so hot and dry right now.