Fall Fresh Tomatoe Salsa From Your Garden

When your summer garden is just about coming to an end, the tomatoes are just taking off.  We have more tomatoes than we need, so I have a recipe for FRESH TOMATOE SALSA  from the garden. 
So far I have made tons of tomatoe jam which I have done in a canner and I hope to give it away at Christmas for gifts.  It is delicious! 
A good friend came by today and gave me a bag of Chile peppers and with all my tomatoes---you guessed!
Here is my recipe:   3 cups chopped tomatoes, 1/2 cup green bell pepper, 1 cup of onion diced, 1/4 cup cilantro chopped, 2 tablespoons lime juice, 4 tsp. jalapeño pepper, 1/2 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/2 tsp. pepper. 
Just stir it together and chill for 2 hours.  Serve with tortilla chips.
I hope you like my salsa recipe !  You will feel good because you will have used all your tomatoes.
Fall is fast approaching the garden.  The colors are so vivid and the air has a feel to it that you really know your garden is about through producing.  However, we are adding nutrients and fresh soil where the old crop was and getting ready to plant some root vegetables.  Shallots and onion sets along with garlic will make good stews and soups. 
Happy munching and planting! 
Basil Babe

A Small Sustainable Farm On Three Acres or Less

After gradually reaping the fall harvest for the last two years I have come to realize we actually have made for ourselves a small sustainable farm on less than three acres. 
We love being outside and planting anything that we get an appetite for, and veggies that we can store up for the winter.  We just harvested all our grapes.  I put them in trays and covered them with cheesecloth I found at the “dollar store”.  I have half of them cleaned and put in small jam jars and  tomorrow I will start on the ones that have taken a little longer to dry.   YES,  I have about twenty jars of delicious raisins. 
Last week we finished drying and roasting sunflower seeds.  I have four quart jars in the pantry for my husband and son to enjoy over the winter.  I soaked them overnight in a salt brine and in the morning, drained them and put them single layered in the oven for 40 minutes at 300 . 
We have 15 chickens that give us about ten eggs every day and they have room to roam and at night they go back to their safety hen house. 
The tomatoes are still going crazy so I am picking  today to make cherry tomato jam.  I will give you the recipe if you like this and have an abundant crop of cherry tomatoes.
2 pounds of cherry tomatoes,  3 Tablespoons olive oil, 2/3 cup champagne vinegar or apple cider vinegar,  1 whole large shallot, minced, 4 cloves garlic minced, 3/4  cup sugar, zest from one lemon, 1 Tablespoon salt.
In a large heavy saucepan, cook the cherry tomatoes. vinegar, salt, sugar, olive oil, shallots, garlic, and lemon over low heat, stirring frequently.  The mixture will rapidly begin to liquefy as the tomatoes break down.  Keep stirring!  This jam is a bit prone to scorching.  After about an hour of low heat reduction, most of the water will be gone.  Let cool and check the consistency.  It should resemble a traditional jelly or jam when cool.  Ladle into small jam jars and process in boiling water for fifteen minutes. 
Another prize crop we grew this year was our butter nut squash.  We have about fifteen of them.   I love butter nut squash baked with brown sugar or maple syrup.  We are leaving them on the vine until  October so the skin will harden and they will keep longer. 
We have about six pumpkins and they are still growing and changing color to a deep orange.  These are just for fun, because I prefer canned pumpkin to cook with.
Our corn crop did not do well, along with the green beans. 
Our pear trees must have a fungus because they are coated with a hard scalely brown coating on the fruit. 
All in all I really believe that anyone can have a small sustainable farm if that is your goal.  Ours took us all of two years to get enough to really enjoy and feel encouraged that we did it.