From a crabgrass lawn, to salsa

Last year. I had a crabgrass lawn where this year, I have tomatoes. First picking is in tonight. Tomorrow these will be salsa. These filled 3/4 of two 5 gallon buckets.

My mouth is watering already.

What sort of grass seed are you using?!?!!
That's awesome!

These are Ultra Early Girl and a Big Boy from Johnny Seed. I seeded them on 26 April and grew them in an unheated solar space, Sat them in the ground over Memorial weekend. Fertilizer is 5-10-10 then Miracle grow liquid tomato fertilizer weekly until fruit is set on. Hilled them up with composted cow manure. The plants are over 6 feet tall and almost as wide. I have them held up with tomato cages, fence post and pipes. I even grew the chili peppers for the Salsa.
I had nearly given up on the vegetable garden until SmokeyTheBear sparked an interest in canning, Now we have plowed the back lawn under,. have a new tiller, using a solar space and a cloche for getting a better start in this usually cold area. We converted one of our back bedrooms into a pantry to hold a freezer and walls full of shelves for our food.

Those things are beautiful!

Oh, man I love homemade salsa......with those big Tostitos Scoop corn chips......GREAT NOW I'M HUNGRY FOR sssssAAAALSA!

So the salsa is made. 46 pints. Half mild (for the wife) and half med hot, for the rest of us. We made it on the chunky side. I like to be able to scoop up something other than liquid! I did the prep work outside on the deck ( used a camp stove) to keep the mess out of the kitchen. That way I can hose down the pots etc. before I bring the equipment back inside. Long journey from planting the seeds to canning the harvest. Nothing in those jars that I can't pronounce.

All hot water bath canning. So good.

recipe or winged it?

Could you please send me one pint of salsa? Well if it is really hot maybe not, it burns my.....assophagus

http://www.pickyourown.org/pdfs/salsa.pdf

Sounds great. Definitely will be making a batch. We have a surplus crop this year.

That recipe calls for 2 cups of lemon juice which I think makes too much liquid in the salsa. Ball makes a powder substitute. We tried it out and found it does help cut back on the fluid and no notable change in flavor. I even put my tomatoes in a salad spinner to wring out the tomato juice. We x2 the recipe with good results. This salsa is good on a lot of things. I really like it on meatloaf or omelettes. Edited. iPad alter typing too much.

Thanks for the tip. I'll put salsa or hot sauce on just about anything.

Sounds delicious, if you grow a paste tomato you will have much less liquid in your salsa. I make a very similar recipe, we always leave the skin on the tomatoes. Dont really notice anything different in the salsa. Also we use the paste tomatoes 3/1 with regular tomatoes and then dont need to squeeze the juice out. But nothing beats homemade salsa, cant go back to store bought once you have your own.
Also if you do have runny salsa you can mix in a little gelatin like used in jelly recipes, thickens it up well.

A loaf of good home made bread makes quick work of extra juice.
The juice also can be used as cooking liquid for rice or beans.

Also something we learned from making salsa is it tastes completely different once it has cooled down. The flavors of the spices come out better after it cools, so if you are cooking it and taste it, may be a little bland but will be amazing once it cools a bit.