Canning salsa

I want to can my own salsa recipe. I don’t like the addition of vinegar in my salsa. Can I just use my recipe and pressure can it? If so, how long?

Also, on a side note, down here in the SE Tennessee we are having a very wet, cool summer. My tomatoes are very slow to turn and the texture is mushy. I’ve also noticed my mature chickens are off their laying schedule and my new hens are being very slow about getting started at all. Weather related? How on earth do you people garden who don’t live down south?

Cindy Baugh
Dandridge, Tennessee

If you don’t want to add vinegar to your salsa, you can either substitute lemon juice, which has no change in flavor, or else make your salsa out of old-fashioned, high-acid tomatoes. The reason you add lemon juice or vinegar is to insure a high enough acidic salsa for safe canning. If your salsa is too runny and that’s why you don’t want to add the vinegar/lemon juice, you can thicken it by adding tomato paste. Also, if you are using other than paste tomatoes, you can peel them, then cut in half, scoop out the seeds and gel, then dice; it cuts down on the excess juice. I don’t like pressure canned salsa as it is too soft for our liking.

Yep, the weather sure affects everything. My hens went into molt and the peppers got too hot in the hoop house and are just starting to bloom. Oh well, we sure can’t change the weather. — Jackie

Yellow leaves on tomato plants

I am just now starting to pick my heirloom tomatoes and noticed that about half of the plants have yellow leaves at the bottom of the plant and it appears that the yellow is moving up the plant. Is this a fungus or disease I should ignore or deal with? Or is something else going on?

Deborah Motylinski
Cadiz, Ohio

Your tomatoes may have blight, but if they are producing, I’d just pick off any dead leaves and harvest the tomatoes. When they are all done producing this fall, pull all the vines and burn them to avoid spreading the disease. Unless it becomes real nasty, as in killing plants, I wouldn’t get too upset. Most gardeners have it to one extent or another unless they plant blight resistant varieties such as Legend. — Jackie