Grilled Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad with Honey Lime Dressing

 Louise Malone 

Here's a healthy recipe for the warm temperatures.
Grilled Corn, Avocado and Tomato Salad with Honey Lime Dressing.
INGREDIENTS:

1 pint grape tomatoes
1 ripe avocado
2 ears of fresh sweet corn
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
HONEY LIME DRESSING
Juice of 1 lime
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp honey
Sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, to taste
1 clove garlic, minced
Dash of cayenne pepper
DIRECTIONS:
Remove husks from corn and grill over medium heat for 10 minutes. The corn should have some brown spots and be tender and not mushy. Cut the corn off the cob then scrape the cob with the back of your knife to get the juices. Set aside and let cool. Slice the tomatoes in half. Dice the avocado and chop the cilantro.
HONEY LIME DRESSING
1. Add all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.
2. Combine the sliced tomatoes, avocado, cilantro and grilled corn and honey lime dressing and mix gently so everything is evenly coated. Be careful not to mash the avocados. Let the salad sit for 10-15 minutes to let flavors mingle.

The Best Homemade Tomato Cages

You’ll enjoy a bigger tomato harvest if you use stakes or tomato cages to help your plants grow vertically, saving space in the garden while keeping fruits off the ground, preventing rot. Store-bought tomato cages tend to be flimsy and too small. For a sturdier option, consider building your own. We think these four plans are especially good choices for creating durable, low-cost tomato cages. Find the best fit for your garden and start building! (The cost estimates for each design are based on current prices from Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co.)

Livestock Panel Trellis

Rigid metal livestock panels (sold at farm stores) make a strong, durable trellis. Simply stand up the panels and attach them to steel T-posts, and you’re on your way to your own wall of tomatoes (see illustration). Livestock panels typically come in 16-foot lengths, but with a pair of bolt cutters or a hacksaw, you can cut them to whatever length you want.
As the tomatoes grow, weave the plants between the openings of the panel for better support. You can use the panels for other crops, including beans, cucumbers and peas. You can even bend the panels to make a trellised archway, which you can cover with plastic for use as a cheap greenhouse or livestock shelter.
Supplies:

• One 16-foot livestock panel
• Steel T-posts (use one for about every 4 to 6 feet of panel) 

Estimated cost: about $2 per tomato plant (assumes four T-posts, plus $20 for a 16-foot panel, with 18 tomato plants spaced 2 feet apart on both sides)
Complete instructions: See Vertical Gardening Techniques for Maximum Returns.

Folding Wooden Tomato Cages

These tall, wooden tomato cages (see illustration) add a beautiful vertical accent to your garden and are strong enough to support a bumper tomato crop. They also work well with other vining crops. To construct a cage, build two tomato “ladders,” with three rungs and a brace to stabilize the sides against strong winds. Connect the two ladders at the top with a piece of scrap wood, which you can easily remove to fold the ladders for storage at the end of the season.
Supplies:

• Six 1-by-3-inch wooden pieces measuring about 8 feet long
• One 8-inch 2-by-4
• Two 3-inch deck screws
• About 30 1 1⁄2-inch galvanized deck screws 

Estimated cost: about $20 per cage (less if you use recycled materials , or maybe saplings)
Complete instructions: See Woody’s Folding Tomato Cages.

Wire Mesh Tomato Cages

Constructing cages from 4- or 5-foot-wide concrete reinforcing wire (see illustration) is quick and simple — and the materials are cheap, which makes these cages an especially good choice if you’re growing on a large scale. They’re also a good bet for people with little DIY experience, because the only tool you’ll need to put them together is a pair of wire cutters.

Concrete wire mesh is stiffer than most other fence wire, and its openings are large enough that you can easily reach through to pick the tomatoes. Cut sections about 5 to 6 feet long to form circular cages 19 to 23 inches in diameter. To make storage easier, vary the diameters so that two or three cages will nest together, one inside the other.
These lightweight cages will blow over easily unless you stake them, so anchor them firmly to the ground with steel T-posts. You can extend your growing season by wrapping each cage with plastic or row cover. This type of tomato cage also works well as a trellis for cucumbers, beans and other vining crops.
Supplies:

• Rolls of 6-by-6-inch concrete reinforcing wire mesh
• Steel T-posts 

Estimated cost: about $8 per cage (based on making 30 cages from a 150-foot roll of concrete mesh, with one steel post per cage)
Complete instructions: See Using Wire Mesh in the Garden.

The Indestructible Tomato Cage

This cage earns the name “indestructible” because it’s made of sturdy plastic pipes (see illustration), which are easy to work with and won’t rot or rust. To construct these cages, drill three sets of corresponding holes in each of three equal lengths of plastic pipe. Form the cages by placing horizontal metal rods (electrical conduit) through holes in the plastic uprights. Make sure the plastic pipes have a large enough diameter to hold the metal conduit you use. The metal crossbars can be removed at the end of the season, making breakdown a breeze and requiring minimal storage space. A bonus: By pouring water into the tops of the vertical pipes, you can deliver moisture directly to your plants’ roots — where they need it most — without providing surface water to competing weeds.
To make drilling the holes in the plastic pipes easier, MOTHER EARTH NEWS contributing editor Steve Maxwell recommends using a step bit. “As the name suggests, a step bit is shaped into a series of steps and designed for use drilling thin metal,” he says. “They also happen to work really well on plastic. Because each level is incrementally larger, they go into the surfaces gently, with little chance of grabbing and splitting.”
Supplies:

• Three 4-foot (or longer) pieces of 3-inch diameter plastic pipe
• 15 feet of electrical conduit 

Estimated cost: about $25 per cage
Complete instructions: See Our Indestructable Tomato Cage.
http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/tomato-cages-zm0z11zphe.aspx?PageId=2
Jennifer Kongs is the Managing Editor at MOTHER EARTH NEWS magazine. When she’s not working at the magazine, she’s likely working in her garden, on the local running trails or in her kitchen instead.

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Growing the eternal tomato By Leonard Trebor
Issue #57 • May/June, 1999

It's an old story to longtime gardeners (and a new story to novices): each spring you buy some superb tomato plants, set them out on May 1 (or thereabouts), then you mulch, water, and spray until about July 4 (depending upon the part of the country in which you live) when you pick your first real beauties of the season.

The plants then thrive for the remainder of the summer. But, about the end of August, they begin to wilt and die. The event is always marked with a tinge of nostalgia as you wonder if you will ever see such wonderful tomatoes again.
Of course, there is always next season, but you can never be sure if the new plants will come close to equalling the old ones. The new strains may not be to your liking, or there may be a problem with the plant's ability to resist wilt or cold weather. You wish you could keep the old plants forever.
Actually, there is an easy way to keep your tomato plants alive forever. You can grow and enjoy the Eternal Tomato by investing just a few minutes and spending a few extra cents. In the bargain you will have the earliest and best plants in your area the next season.

Suckering

Many old-time gardeners know about the process called suckering. This calls for you to break a stem or two from your tomato plants and plant them. Don't worry about your plants because breaking off the suckers doesn't hurt them. In fact, they'll grow a lot better without them.
Here's how to do it: Examine your healthy and strong plants. Look for stems and limbs that look like the forks of a slingshot. The only difference is that growing from the exact center of the fork there will be a shoot, called a sucker, that looks healthy and vigorous—and it is because it is using more than its rightful share of the nutrients of the plant. Break off the sucker by holding it one inch from the point where it joins the fork of the plant. Bend it forward, then backward. The stem will snap off cleanly, unlike other stems of the plant which will snap and then cling by a few fibers if you attempt to break them away.

1. Locate the suckers that grow on a straight stem from between two strong tomato branches.

2. Grasp the sucker near its base, about an inch from where the three growths come together. Just snap the sucker loose.

3. Stick the broken end of the stem into the potting soil and pack the soil tightly around the stem.

The suckers you break off should be no more than one foot in length. When you have the sucker in hand, push the stem end into a jiffy pot or some other small container that's filled with potting soil. Push the end three or so inches into the soil and use your fingers to pack soil tightly around the stem.
Do eight or ten of the suckers if you have room for them. Water them generously, but do not have the stems standing in water. Set the containers in an old tray or inside an aluminum pan. Leave them where they will get abundant sunshine.
Within five or so days, the stems will put out roots and, in a few weeks, you will have an independent plant that is ready to produce tomatoes.
When is the proper time to start sucker plants? You can do it whenever you wish, as long as the parent plant is good and strong.
When you start your tomato plants in the early summer or late spring, you can set out a dozen or so plants. Then two or three weeks later you can break off a dozen or two suckers from the 12 plants.
Set these new plants out and, in two to four weeks, you can break suckers off these plants, as well as from the first sucker plants and the parent plants. In short, start with 10 or 12 plants and by mid-summer you will have a hundred plants, all the children of the parent plants, coming at no cost whatever, except for the potting soil.
And you don't even need potting soil. It simply helps get the plants off to a good start. However, if you wish, you can break off the suckers and stick the stems directly into good, loose soil and they will take root there if you see they are watered well.
During the summer you can eat the fresh tomatoes and sell, barter, or can the surplus. In our family of three, we like to have two quarts of canned tomatoes per week, so we can about 100 quarts each year. This gives us plenty of base for spaghetti sauce, soups, and other dishes.
At the end of the season you can pick all the green tomatoes, wrap them individually in newspaper, and, in the middle of winter when you unwrap them, they will be a delightful shade of ripeness.
At the end of the season, snap off more suckers and start these in small containers. If you build a small greenhouse, you can keep the plants through the winter.
As the tomatoes grow larger and larger, you can transplant them to larger containers. You may want to use five-gallon or smaller containers. One-gallon cans also work well.
The greenhouse will keep the plants alive on cold nights, and if you open the doors on warm days the wind or the insects still on the wing will pollinate the blossoms, and you can grow your own fresh tomatoes even when there is snow on the ground.
The following spring, move the plants back outdoors and, if you wish, you can transplant them again, this time into the soil of the garden. Then the process starts all over again.