Tips for Growing a Salsa Garden in Texas

If you are wanting to grow a salsa garden in Texas but don't know where to start, here are a few tips to get you on the right track.

Where to Grow

If you live somewhere that doesn’t have the space for a large in-ground garden, then raised planters will be your best friend. You can purchase ones online or at your local garden supplier, or you can make your own out of wooden shipping pallets.

Even a couple of large pots can do the trick. Set them up in your backyard (or balcony if you have the space) and make sure they will be getting plenty of sun. Tomatoes and peppers LOVE the sun.

Sun

Your tomatoes and peppers love the sun and are happy in the Texas heat. However, your cilantro might be a bit pickier and prefer the morning sun and a bit of shade/indirect sunlight during the hotter afternoons.

Water

Be sure to keep the soil moist but not soaked. This means you should be watering your peppers and tomatoes around once a day and make sure the planters have good drainage to avoid too much water collecting in the bottom.

On particularly hot days, or if you notice the soil drying up quickly, you might need to water more frequently. You also need to keep the cilantro’s soil moist and be sure not to overwater.

Harvesting

Depending on what type of tomatoes you grow, you will either have determinate or indeterminate plants. Determinants will produce the fruit all at once for one big harvest, and then stop growing after that. Indeterminants will continue to grow and produce more fruit, allowing you to continually harvest throughout the season.

Either way, it is best to harvest your tomatoes after they have ripened on the vine, but you can also harvest them while slightly green and ripen them on the counter inside a paper bag.

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When it comes to your peppers, they will go through color changes from green to red, and you can harvest them at any stage depending on your desired flavor.

For jalapeños, they are most often harvested while still green, but can be harvested after ripening to red for a spicier pepper. The more often you harvest your peppers the more your plant will produce as its energy can be put into the new fruit.