Growing Salsa Tomato and Pepper Plants

Vegetable Gardens Planted for Mexican Dishes

Gardeners can include, in a food garden, vegetables and herbs for foodies to make popular dishes like Mexican salsa. The fresh ingredients for salsa include tomatoes, peppers, onion and cilantro, which are easy to grow.

When planting a vegetable garden for a food dish, make sure the vegetable and herb plants require similar growing conditions. Gardens growing tomatoes, peppers, cilantro and onion should be planted in full sun with well amended, moist, well-draining soil, watered well throughout summer and with added mulch of grass clippings or straw to preserve moisture around the plants.

Tomatoes for Homemade Salsa

The best tomatoes for homemade salsa are meaty varieties with less juice. Plum shaped or roma tomatoes, traditionally used for sauces, are good choices.

Firm tomatoes that are easy to cut into small pieces, like the cultivar 'Fresh Salsa' is one variety to consider. This tomato plant is called a determinate making it appropriate to plant in small gardens or containers.

Another determinate variety of tomato is the 'Ensalada' hybrid. It is a strong disease-resistant type and also easy to grow in containers. Gardeners can harvest tomatoes from this plant after 68 days.

Sweet or Hot Peppers for Mexican Cooking

Cooks can control how spicy-hot salsa is by deciding the types of peppers to use from the garden. A combination of different peppers can make a colorful dish.

'Costa Rican Sweet' can be harvested after 70 days, the redder the pepper is allowed to grow the sweeter it will taste. This pepper is a marconi type, appropriate for roasting on a grill as well as tossed into salads.

An heirloom variety from Ecuador called 'Hot Lemon' is a slender very yellow pepper that grows 3" to 4" long. This pepper will add a smoky spicy-hot taste to salsa.

The hybrid pepper 'Salsa Delight' can be harvested in 70 days. This is a mildly hot pepper that will add a sweet taste to salsa.

Cilantro Herb for Salsa

The Coriandrum sativum herb plant provides leaves called cilantro used in making salsas and other Mexican dishes. The plant grows 12" to 18" tall so plant it in an eight- to 10-inch diameter pot. Harvest tender leaves for chopping into salsa before flowering. Cilantro is an annual herb than can be grown indoors placed in a sunny window.

Types of Onion for Mexican Dishes

Like with peppers, choosing a type of onion for salsa will affect the taste of the salsa. Yellow and red onions are types many gardeners can grow. Red onions add sweetness to a Mexican dish.

Scallions and shallots are other onion type plants suitable to grow in a small garden. Scallions, also called green onions, and shallots are a favorite for fresh salads because the onion flavor is milder than sweet onions.

A vegetable garden planted with tomatoes, peppers, onions and cilantro is easy to grow. It will provide the cook with an abundance of fresh ingredients for any Mexican dish, including salsa.

Readers may also enjoy this recipe using chili peppers.