Salsa Garden Tips

Jul 7

Our first big garden project this year at SWU has been our Salsa Garden. This year we started construction on our building so we’ve transitioned from direct sowing to having a container garden. We hope that, by showing container gardens, we can encourage everyone to #GardenEverywhere. For this garden, we decided on a “salsa garden” so we could hopefully use all the crops together to create fresh, homemade salsas and not have any food waste. Also, Tomatoes, peppers, and onions are great companion plants for each other and all do well in containers and raised beds.

Tomatoes come in many sizes and varieties. We chose to go with Roma tomatoes because smaller varieties tend to be able to grow and ripen before the summer heat sets in too much. Tomatoes also come in two types-determinate and indeterminate. Determinate grow like a bush and stay shorter while indeterminates grow vines and will grow wild unless pruned back.

Tomato Tips:

Small to medium varieties work best
Determinate varieties grow shorter and stay their height while indeterminate vine and continue to grow
Pruning Indeterminate plants can help the plant focusing on growing fruit instead of vines

Peppers also come in many varieties ranging from sweet and mild to hot and spicy. Most varieties do well in San Antonio. Most peppers do well in containers as well but will probably need to be watered daily to fruit.

Pepper Tips:

Peppers like full sun for at least 6 hours a day
Peppers do great in containers and raised beds
Tomatoes and onions are great companion plants for peppers

Onions come in two varieties: “long day”, which needs 14-16 hours of sunlight to begin to form bulbs, and “short day”, which needs 10-12 hours of sunlight. Seeds can be directly sown into the ground mid to late October while transplants go in the ground by mid to late February. Onions do well in containers and can be harvested on a rolling schedule if you want to use some as scallions/green onions and others as bulb onions.

Onion Tips: