They finally dried out!

After about 10 days or so of not watering my plants, the tomatoes finally dried out. I waited a bit longer than I wanted to and some did start to wilt. I know that's frowned upon by some, but I figured I need to experience truly dry plants to make sure I understand when I need to water them. The peppers and pomegranates are still pretty moist, I'm expecting the peppers to need watering in another day or so. Back to watering, I did get a meter last weekend to test the amount of light, wetness and pH balance of the soil. best 8 bucks I could have spent. I took some wetness readings from the plants and can test the next couple of weeks until I finally have a grasp of when to water without using the crutch. Tomatoes are looking perking now, but I did find a beetle near one of my tomato plants. I don't think he was on the plant per se, and there was no sign of damage. Later this evening I'll be going out and inspecting to see if any critters decide to sneak in after sundown.

Recipe: Candied Ginger

I'm a bit down by the fact that some of my tomato plants appear to be succumbing too the over watering by nature recently (although I watered one plant thinking that perhaps my recent lack of watering to help them dry out is the issue). At any rate, I decided to take the left over ginger in the fridge and candy it. I found a pretty easy recipe online on about.com but I'll regurgitate it here for convenience, and I didn't follow the recipe exact, so sue me.

First and foremost, this candy recipe doesn't require a thermometer, how cool is that?

Ingredients:

• Fresh ginger (any amount will due, I used the left overs from a 4 oz. package)
• Sugar (the amount will vary based on the ginger used, see below)
• Water

Directions:

1. Peel and cut the ginger into thin slices
2. Place the ginger in a pot, and cover with water
3. Lightly boil the ginger until tender, took about 45 minutes for me to be pleased with the tenderness
4. Drain and dry (lightly pat, I placed mine in a paper towel and squeezed lightly)
5. Weigh the ginger
6. Add the ginger and an equal weight of sugar back to the pot (mine was just over an ounce)
7. Add a few tablespoons of water (the original recipe said 3, and that's what I did, but it seemed like a bit much considering the recipe was for 16 ounces of fresh ginger)
8. Bring the pot back to a point stirring every once in a while. Keep boiling until most of the water is evaporated
9. Reduce heat and keep stirring, the mixture will eventually get very dry
10. Dump the ginger out and separate (I used wax paper)
11. The original recipe said to toss the cooled ginger in sugar. I skipped this step as there was a good amount of excess sugar in the pot / stuck to the ginger
12. Let it cool and enjoy!

Super simple and very yummy, sweetness paired with the spice / bite of the ginger. I may end up eating it all before my wife gets home from the book store ;)