Grow a Salsa Garden

Enjoy delicious fresh-from-the-garden salsa this summer that you can make yourself with these planting and recipe ideas.

The BHG Garden Editors

view all thumbnails

Cilantro

Garden at a Glance

Better Boy Tomato

Golden Jubilee Tomato

Jalapeno Pepper

Garlic Chives

Sweet Pickle Pepper

Black Pearl Pepper

Calico Pepper

Our Planting Grid

Related Links

Grow a Pizza Garden

Wow friends and family by growing your favorite pi...

Vegetable Garden Plans

Grow a healthy, beautiful vegetable garden with th...

Grow a Cocktail Garden

Enjoy tasty fresh-from-the-garden beverages this s...

How to Grow Onions and Garlic

Learn how to grow easy-care onions and garlic in y...

Your Comment:

Cilantro

Offering one of the garden's most distinctive flavors, cilantro creates a zing in every dish it's in. Because cilantro is a short-season crop, it's best to plant a few seeds every three or four weeks -- that way you'll have a steady supply.

Garden at a Glance

We grew this garden in a 10-square-foot bed in full sun. Because there's a lot of clay in the Better Homes and Gardens Test Garden, we grew the plants in raised beds liberally amended with compost. All of the plants were provided by Bonnie Plants.

Better Boy Tomato

One of the most popular tomatoes, 'Better Boy' offers red globe-shape fruits with great taste and good disease resistance. It's a vigorous plant that provides a lot of fruits over the season.

Golden Jubilee Tomato

Introduced in 1943, this award-winning tomato is still popular today. It offers loads of big, golden-yellow fruits with a mild flavor. It has good disease resistance.

Jalapeno Pepper

Add heat to your salsa with jalapeno peppers. They offer a distinct taste and mild to hot flavor. Use them green or wait for them to mature to red for extra color -- they're great both ways.

Garlic Chives

Garlic chives is an easy-to-grow perennial that gives great flavor to salsas. Try chopping it up and using it in homemade guacamole! The plant's grassy leaves create nice texture in the garden and the edible white flowers are a pleasant late-summer surprise.

Test Garden Tip: Garlic chives can self-seed vigorously; cutting the flowers off as they fade will prevent it from self-seeding and spreading through your garden.

Sweet Pickle Pepper

This heavy-yielding variety offers wonderful, 2-inch-long fruits that turn from orange to yellow, purple, then red as they mature. It pickles well and makes a fun addition to salsas and salads.

Black Pearl Pepper

Hotter than a jalapeno (and often sold as an ornamental variety because it packs so much heat), 'Black Pearl' offers rich purple foliage and attractive black-purple fruits that mature to glowing red.

Learn more about growing this pepper!

Calico Pepper

Calico pepper provides any planting with a festival feel thanks to its purple-green foliage colorfully streaked with lavender, cream, and white. It bears tiny purple flowers that become ultra-hot thumbnail-sized fruits.

Note: Because the peppers are so hot, it's sold as an ornamental variety.

Learn more about growing this pepper!

Our Planting Grid

Here's a grid you can use to create your own salsa garden:

A. 1 'Better Boy' tomato
B. 1 'Golden Jubilee' tomato
C. 1 'Jalapeno' pepper
D. 1 garlic chives
E. 4 cilantro
F. 1 'Sweet Pickle' pepper
G. 2 'Black Pearl' pepper
H. 1 'Calico' pepper

Grow a Salsa Garden

Top Brands

Top Searches