Chris Burrous: Everyone’s a farmer when it comes to their own backyard; try these tips on doing it Home Grown.
Kristine Hanson: Hot weather, hot, spicy salsa, always seem to go together – and it’s this time of year when you can really turn up the heat and create the salsa of your taste by growing your own veggies. California, hot summers, love tomatoes and hot peppers and they’re easy to grown in the garden or container.
We’re going to creates a salsa themed garden right here in this container. We’re going to start with tomatoes and there’s no right or wrong here, just use tomatoes that you like. Certain tomatoes are going to give you a different character to your salsa. A Roma tomato is going to give you a little meatier texture, a little saucier style salsa. If you do Better Boy, Beefsteak or even an heirloom - you’re going to get a more watery base but a lot of sweetness and that’s nice. You’re going to want to plant a couple of different varieties and stager the planting so you will have produce all season long.
Now, let’s plant! We’re going to take this tomato and plant this to the middle to the back of the container. You can put it just a little bit below the surface level of this potted plant that will grow some roots up along the base of the plant itself. And we are going to plant it toward the back so we have room for other ingredients up front. Now tomato plants generally grow up, so we’re going to need some staking. The reason we want to stake tomatoes is to get good air circulation so we get maximum ripening of the fruit, this stake will allow good air circulation and again some convective style heating so we get some very sweet tomatoes and support the tomatoes as it grows up. We’ve left plenty of room in the container around the front and that’s for our next ingredient, peppers.
So how hot to you like your salsa? Well, generally green peppers are not as hot as red, and red is not as hot as orange. So if you want a mild, plant an Anaheim or bell pepper…a little more bite, you’re going to want a jalapeño or a Serrano, and you might consider planting habeneros for color and interest, or for the true iron palette. Now it’s time to fill it in with a splash of spice. And this is where you’re going to really spice up your salsa. Cilantro is a favorite Mexican herb, and this is fabulous in salsa it grows very easy in our pot. You can also add some onion and some garlic. And now it’s time to put in our finishing touches to our themed salsa garden.
I would finish off your salsa garden with a good organic compost, peppers will need a small dose of fertilizer where you may need to supplement your tomatoes just a little bit more. And, then some water, make sure these plants don’t get stressed, and then let the summer’s heat do it’s magic.
And once your veggies are ripe, you’ve got the perfect ingredients for your own salsa. Now it’s time to sit back, get your chips, a cold blended drink and enjoy your own homegrown, homemade salsa.