The Story Behind My Salsa Garden

First of all let me say that this is the only pic of my garden I have so you get to see Maggie as well.

I used to grow a large garden every year. My family benefited from it greatly. I had a 20 by 40 foot plot towards the read of our yard. I totally enjoyed all of it.  After our kids grew up though, we found that it became more of a chore than it was worth. My wife and I liked to take a week or two in August for a motorcycle trip, and by the time we got back the weeds owned it. A couple of years of this was enough. I planted grass in the old plot and we enjoyed our liberated lifestyle.

Problem is I do love gardening, and the produce we get from it. You can’t buy tomatoes like the ones you can grow, especially the heirloom varieties like Marglobe which is my all-time flavor favorite. In order to scratch this itch, I built a garden that originally was 3 ft by 12 ft, but I have since enlarge it to 3 ft by 20 ft. I made a raised bed using treated 4×4’s stacked 2 high, filled it with good topsoil, and covered it with landscaping fabric to defeat the weeds. This allows a row of tomatoes with a row of peppers and herbs in front. One end has zucchini.

You can see the raised bed behind Maggie. I put the Early Girl’s into 5 gallon buckets. That way they come on even earlier. I usually begin to harvest my Early Girls in early July.

I plant Marigolds in some pots around my garden and deck area. The seem to keep mosquitoes away.

My tomatoes are:

• Early Girl – 2 in planters for early harvest
• Better Boy – 2 for eating/salsa disease resistant
• Big Boy – 1 for eating/salsa disease resistant
• Marglobe – 3 for eating/salsa great taste
• Large cherry – 1 for snacks
• Roma – 1 for sauce

My peppers are:

• California Wonder – 1 for green large peppers
• Pablano – 1 for stuffed peppers
• Ghost Pepper – 1 for extra heat
• Serrano’s – 5 they are hotter than jalapeno’s but have similar flavor
• Jalapeno – 2 jalapeno’s

The herbs are:

• Basil
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Tarragon
• Oregano

This layout produces those flavors that the grocery stores have trouble matching, and provides the basis to can salsa around the end of August. The last couple of years I’ve been freezing the salsa. It’s way easier. Just cook it up like you would, let it cool, pour it into quart ziplocks, lay em out flat in the freezer on a cookie sheet if necessary, and you’re done.