Dreaming In Shades of Green ~ Planning the Salsa Garden

One of the best Homesteader's Production Gardens would be the Salsa Garden...cos who doesn't like salsa?? It's one of those gardens that can give you a financial boost both fresh and canned! I like that!

Photo by Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman

My triple layer plan, this year, will be to market the starts, market the grown produce that we produce here, at The Garden Gate, and finally, to market whatever has not sold in the form of already made salsas! That should cover all the bases! I've got several different recipes for a variety of Salsas, for cooked salsa, for salsas cruda (raw), salsa verde in a variety of heat levels, salsa roja in a variety of heat levels and some new combo's still in the mental tumbler!

I've shown you how I do my Roasted Tomato Salsa; now, here's how we are going to grow it! We'll start with the tomatoes...the base to any Salsa Roja.

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Any sort of red tomato will work for Salsa Roja. My choice is the Roma tomato, over all of the rest. Number one, they are reliably sweet, no matter what season. Number two, the seeds are clustered in the center of the tomato, so you can easily cut off the 'cheeks' of the tomato, leaving the seedy center for planting or straining for tomato water (popular with the mixologists!); then you just have to dice the easy to handle pieces! And, three, it's an easy to grow tomato...I seem to have less luck with growing the larger beefsteak types of tomatoes ...but Roma tomatoes do well for me...go figure! If you do well with the others, by all means, plant to your heart's content! I'll, of course, be trying some of the larger varieties, again, cos Goonies never say 'die'! But, I know that I can rely of the faithful Roma to do its growing job.

For our Salsa Verde, we'll plant our Tomatillos. I'll plant these like I did last year, by the slice. It was so darned easy, and I had fabulous germination rates! These guys are native to Mexico, so you'd think they'd tolerate heat better than they do. It was late Spring by the time I thought of the slice planting for Tomatillos, so my harvest was small. Heck, I was just tickled pink that it worked! This year, I'll put them in early, indoors, and get a head start on the process. While I have not found the seeds locally, they are available online. But, I can find fresh tomatillos, all year round, at the grocery store.

Second to go in Salsa is some sort onion. White Onion or Scallions are my weapons of choice for any of my Salsas, sometimes both! I like the fresh crunch of the white onion, but the green of the scallion tops makes it pretty.

These were just transplanted from a smaller home. After a good top off of soil and a little more growing time, they'll be ready for anything! And Green Onions 2018 are on the windowsill in their indoor growing period. I've got my Onion butts in water, to see who wants to become part of the larger picture, and the leeks that will come from them would be tasty in our salsas. Of course, I've always got fresh onion on hand in the kitchen, so we'll be ok, any way we look at it!

And, of course, Cilantro must join us! I love Cilantro. We're trying a slow bolting variety this year, though! It'll be doing all good, and along comes whatever it is that sets Cilantro off, and boom, poof...it's bolted and going to flower! I plant Cilantro several times over the course of the growing season, trimming it back to encourage growth. My relationship with Cilantro is a work in progress! If you're one of those that cannot stand Cilantro, you could plant some Italian Flat Leaf Parsely to take Cilantro's place. It doesn't taste anything like Cilantro, and will give that freshness that a good Salsa needs.

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Here's where we go crazy!!! Salsa requires a kick! For our family, I use Serranos or Jalapenos. I'm a weenie when it comes to too much heat! But, I've got a few customers who like to breathe fire! This year (so far) I've got Jalapeno Early Peppers and some Red Hot Anaheim Peppers.

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And, a friend of mine gave me some Habanero seeds to try out this year! Woohoo! Throwing caution to the wind! She also gave me a packet of Cayenne Blend seeds to try out, that are supposed to be delicious fresh or dried! The dried Cayenne peppers are good in Asisan food, but that's another planting for another day's Blog! With this planting plan, we'll be set for almost any type of Salsa we can come up with!

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As I get things planted, and they get to growing, I'll take pictures to share with you here. If you decide to grow your own Salsa Garden, I'd love to see how yours does! For now, it's time to get out to the greenhouse, make sure eveything is ok to go through the next freeze, set to come through tonight.

For all my Steemian friends, stay warm, stay safe! And, Steem on!
Until next time, hugggzzzzz!

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