© 1998 Henrik Nordström

Last summer I set aside a bed in my garden for growing all the ingredients needed for homemade salsa. My salsa garden provided me with several pounds of fresh salsa from August well into October. The following vegetables are needed in salsa: tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, onions or garlic, and cilantro. Here is how to grow them:

Tomatoes become tastier and less watery if you grow them dry. This means watering in the plants at planting time and then never watering them again. This sounds radical, but it really works. Tomato plants develop extremely deep roots, several feet if the soil is loose enough. Only if the plants droop in hot weather because of poor soil conditions should they be watered. Tomato plants grown in containers should naturally be watered because of the limited amount of soil available.

Tomatillos or husk tomatoes are extremely productive. One tomatillo plant produced over 30 pounds of tomatillos in my garden, so obviously there were plenty to give away to the food bank. Tomatillos are also quite resistant to late blight, so they can be grown in less than ideal locations and conditions. Like tomatoes, they need only moderate fertilizing at planting time.

Hot peppers are generally easier to grow than bell peppers. Some perform well even during marginal summers, and many varieties are also resistant to blight. My Hungarian Wax peppers kept producing through October, long after the Chili peppers had succumbed to blight. Peppers should receive only small amounts of fertilizer at regular intervals throughout the growing season to avoid excessive plant growth at the expense of production.

Onions and garlic should be planted the previous fall or very early spring for mid-summer harvest. They have shallow roots, and need regular watering and fertilizing. They should also be grown in raised beds to prevent neck rot during the wet season. They benefit from mulching with compost, leaves or grass clippings, but keep the mulch from touching the plants to prevent rot.

Cilantro (coriander leaves) has hard seeds which are slow to germinate. They also need perfect conditions for germination: 70-80 degrees soil temperature and plenty of moisture. Cilantro is easiest to plant from transplants started indoors. The useful harvest period depends on the temperature: in hot weather, the cilantro plants will bolt (start blooming) and stop producing leaves in just a couple of weeks after maturity. In the fall, the same plant can produce for many weeks until the first killing frost.

You can prepare your salsa raw or cooked. The degree of chunkiness is really a personal choice. For recipes, you can call the King Country Extension Service at 296-3900.

Want to try something old? How about Purslane, an ancient vegetable which was grown even before the Romans. It is native to central Asia, and also grows wild along the Mississippi. In California, it has actually naturalized and is sometimes considered a weed. Purslane is a succulent herb-like plant which can be used like spinach and other greens. It gives a cool, refreshing feeling eaten directly from the garden on a hot summer day. Purslane contains ten times the amount of vitamin C as compared to oranges and is also very rich in iron and potassium. The stems can be cooked like beans. There are green and golden varieties. Purslane requires fertile soil and regular watering.