Vegetables

Vegetables to Plant in July and August in Your Garden

July 20, 2017 by Heather Leister

Welcome Gardening Friend! Glad you dropped in.

Was 2017 the year that you planned to finally get your family garden up and running? Maybe now you’re realizing that it’s July and all you have is a bare patch of soil and good intentions? Not to fear! You still have time to enjoy a fall harvest and make it a family affair! Here are some ideas of vegetables to plant in July and August in your garden.

Here are four fruits and vegetables that are fun to grow, yield a quick crop, and make gardening with the family easy and fun!

Tomatoes: Since tomatoes need to be planted after the danger of frost has passed they’re a possible choice for mid-summer planting. When July’s summer heat kicks into high gear, you’ll want to take precautions to protect the plants from the hottest part of the day, plus plant on a cloudy day or in the evening after the worst heat. Shade coverings, mulch, and adequate & consistent watering will help your tomato plants take off. When starting tomatoes later in the summer it’s also important to select a “short season” variety, one that will be ready for harvest before the fall frost arrives. There are also some heat tolerant varieties as well, like Grape, Heat Wave II or Fourth of July.

Some varieties of tomatoes are good vegetables to plant in July and August in your garden.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Peppers: Although pepper plants take longer to mature than other vegetables, their fruits can be fun for children (and adults!) to watch as they grow and change color. You’ll find varieties of pepper plants that have Days to Maturity time of 60-70 days. Examples: Orange Blaze, Gold Standard, Jalapeno Gigante, or Big Guy. Chick here for more. Your garden center will also have some seeds and maybe some plants still available to browse through. Find one that your family will enjoy eating, as well as watching! Remember that some varieties of peppers must be handled with care as they leave a residue on the skin that will cause irritation.

Find a fast maturing pepper to plant later in the season.

Photo Credit: Wiki Media

Pumpkins: Plant pumpkin seeds now and reap some jack-o-lanterns in the fall! But you better hurry! Pumpkins generally require 75-100 days to maturity. Check the variety! Hopefully we won’t have a frost until late October. Your children can watch as the seeds grow into vines that will creep throughout your garden. When selecting your pumpkin seeds, think about the size of your available garden space. You’ll want to choose between between a variety of tiny pumpkins or larger ones that are best suited for carving jack-o-lanterns. No matter what you decide, pumpkins are fun and easy to grow and their seeds make a delicious, roasted treat in the fall.

Photo Credit: Public Domain Pictures

Radishes: Radishes are a terrific addition to the family garden because they are colorful, quick growers. Children can expect to pull up their first crop just a few short weeks after planting the seeds – a very quick garden turnaround! Your family will enjoy watching as the tops of the radish greens emerge from the soil. When they are about one week ole, radish plants should be thinned to approximately two inches apart a job that children can do after some instruction and coaching. Fast growing spring varieties of radishes should be planted when the weather is still cool. However, winter radishes can be planted later in the summer as late as mid-August. They take longer to grow but will still provide your family with the satisfaction of planting a seed in the ground and pulling a vegetable out of the dirt!

Radishes are great vegetables to plant in July and August in your garden.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

The 2nd Planting List: Come on in to Western Gardens for an extensive list of vegetables and herbs that can still be planted in July and August. To name a few on the list: arugula, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage, and many many more.

Harmful Garden Insects: Organic Management

July 18, 2017 by Marjorie Carter

Welcome, Friends! Glad you’re here for some tips to organically manage those pesky harmful garden insects so you’ll have produce left to harvest!

All yards and allotments will have harmful garden insects every year; it’s part of nature. These insects need to eat in order to feed the beneficial insects. Eliminating ALL the harmful insects from your garden would be time, labor, and resource intensive. You also run the risk of depleting the food source for beneficial insects and other animals that feed on the harmful critters.

Wise Goal – An important and wise goal is to control the harmful garden insects enough to reduce the damage to your garden to a manageable level. Meaning that by harvest time, there is something left for you to eat. Losing one or two tomatoes is manageable and probably hardly noticed, but an entire decimated crop means there’s a problem to address.

Aphids – One year we had aphids on our herbs which was easily treated by spraying the affected plants with neem oil, a wonderful organic product found at Western Gardens. This significantly reduced the number of bugs. They were further kept at bay by some helpful ladybugs, also found at your garden shop.

We were careful to thoroughly wash our herbs before eating them to remove any remaining aphids. Washing anything you harvest before eating it is always a good idea anyway.

Leaf Miner – Last year, our challenge was leaf miner larvae on our Swiss chard. In this case, we simply discarded any leaves that had been extensively chewed. Otherwise, we snipped off the parts that didn’t look as appetizing, like anything that had a visible egg attached to it (usually on the underside of the leaves), washed everything, and then enjoyed our tasty green salad.

This year, now that we know to look for the leaf miner eggs on the leaves, we were more attentive with our starts for our garden and inspected them daily, looking for them or other harmful garden insects. We found eggs on our pepper plants and did our best to remove them when the plants were small. We used a piece of duct tape wrapped around a finger to remove the eggs.

We found that using a gentle fingernail was still too rough for the tender young leaves, so gently touching the tiny eggs with the sticky duct tape easily lifted them off.

Once the plants were more mature and could withstand a little insect activity, we were less vigilant at egg removal, but still mindful of looking for eggs once in a while. Read more on homemade remedies for treating leaf miners by clicking here.

Squash Bug – This year, we planted pumpkins for the first time. We had heard of the dreaded squash bug and had been looking for them but hadn’t seen any damage to the plants. Then, just last week (late June), one of our pumpkin plants was nearly devoured overnight by something.

We assumed it was the infamous squash bug. This assumption was reinforced when, upon closer inspection of the plant, we found a mating pair of squash bugs with a third one waiting on the side-line and eggs attached to the underside of the remaining leaves and the stem. We posted photos of the damage to a Facebook gardening group and learned of some other likely culprits. That night my husband went out with a headlamp and a bottle of neem oil to investigate.

Earwigs – Someone suggested the damage looked like the work of earwigs. My husband found several earwigs eating on the plant and a swarm of them hiding in a nearby crevasse. Earwigs are a complicated insect in the garden. They are not only harmful, but also beneficial. They aid in breaking down organic matter (composting) and they also eat aphids and other harmful insects. However, when there are too many of them around a young susceptible plant, they can be very destructive. We could also see evidence of earwigs damage on a few leaves of nearby tomato plants. This minimal damage doesn’t pose a risk to a plant that has hundreds of leaves to perform. In comparison, the pumpkin plant had only a dozen leaves to start with and most of those were very damaged.

My husband sprayed neem oil on the earwigs on the plant, in the swarm nearby, and even in their nest. It’s still uncertain whether the plant will survive though it already shows signs of new growth. We monitor it closely to prevent another insect attack that would probably kill it.

Another organic alternative that works to kill earwigs is diatomaceous earth, which also now offers a nice dispensing bottle which helps cut down on waste and mess. Check it out at Western Gardens.

As for the squash bugs, not the main culprits to the pumpkin plant, they were probably snacking on it also. We’re still removing eggs as we find them (using the duct tape trick mentioned above) and killing any adults. Their numbers can quickly get out of hand. Again, diatomaceous earth works well to control squash bugs.

Beneficial vs Harmful Insects – Lady bugs, praying mantis, and birds are a few examples of creatures that feed on the harmful garden insects; hence, we like to see these around around the yard. When considering how to handle any harmful garden insects, the first reaction should generally not be total annihilation. Rather, try to reduce their numbers and also allow the beneficial insects and animals to do their part until the plant is mature enough to withstand the damage.

Good luck and happy hunting!

CLICK HERE to read about beneficial insects you want in your garden.

Homemade Ketchup Recipe

June 5, 2017 by Jenn Crookston

WELCOME Gardener, Happy to see you here checking out a delicious Homemade Ketchup Recipe for all those tomatoes you are growing!

Are you looking forward to summertime and all the amazing foods summer brings? I love picnics and bbq-ing, basically anything that allows me to eat outside and on dishes I don’t have to wash afterward. One consistent condiment is ketchup, it seems like ketchup goes with just about every summertime meal.
I love trying new recipes, especially recipes that are simple and include items I always have on hand. Every year we plant a variety of tomato plants and I enjoy using them in the summer and fall. Unfortunately half of my family are not tomato lovers so I find myself giving tomatoes away so they don’t go to waste. This year I am determined to learn how to can tomatoes so I can use them all year round and they’re perfect for this Homemade Ketchup Recipe.

Homemade Ketchup RECIPE:

*Whole Peeled Tomatoes, I used 1 large can Whole Peeled Tomatoes (1lb 12oz can)
(I’m looking forward to canning my own tomatoes this year to use for this recipe and many others)
*1/8 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
*1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
*1.5 tablespoon Honey
*1-1.5 teaspoon Mustard
*1/4-1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce
*1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper
*1 teaspoon Onion Powder (can add more to taste)

Homemade Ketchup Recipe INSTRUCTIONS:

*Place all ingredients into a medium-size pot.
*Bring ingredients to a boil over medium-high heat. Once boiling turn down and simmer for 60 minutes.
*After 60 minutes remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
*Once cool pour into blender and blend until smooth.
*Pour into air-tight container and place in refrigerator for up to 14 days.

While this recipe isn’t the quickest it is quite possibly the simplest recipe you’ll find out there and it is delicious. I highly recommend making it a couple of days ahead of time, if you can, the more time the flavors have to blend the better it will taste. I love the rich flavor, I personally love that you can taste more of the tomato flavor and my family all loved it, even the tomato haters, so you don’t have to worry that the flavor is too strong.

I’m excited to bring this delicious ketchup to all our summer gatherings, I can’t wait to try it in homemade fry sauce too!
If you’re planning a bbq this summer or attending one, you need to try one of these amazing salads that are serious crowd pleasers!

Mom’s Potato Salad

Chicken Pasta Caesar Salad

Spinach Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

Difference Between Heirloom and Hybrid Tomatoes

May 24, 2017 by Marjorie Carter

Welcome Gardening Friend! Glad you dropped in.

When we first started growing tomatoes several years ago, I didn’t know the difference between heirloom and hybrid tomatoes. I had heard about heirloom tomatoes and wondered what that meant. To me, an heirloom tomato sounded like some prized family possession (like great-great grandma’s china plates) or some secret family seed (like that secret family recipe for chocolate cake) that had been passed down from generation to generation. Basically, it made them sound unattainable without a special connection to someone from a family that had been growing tomatoes for countless generations. That was my impression. So, I simply went about my business of buying tomato starts at the local garden centers. I didn’t hear the term “hybrid tomato” until a few years ago. Hybrids were the kinds of tomatoes I’d been growing but didn’t know it.

As the push for more natural and organic ways of producing food has been growing, the market for heirloom tomatoes has become much more mainstream. One can buy packets of certain varieties of heirloom tomato seeds at pretty much any gardening center and starts for heirloom tomatoes can also be found in more locations.

But really,

What’s the difference between heirloom and hybrid tomatoes?

One way to define an heirloom tomato is a variety that has been passed down within a family or has been around for at least 50 years (though it seems there is some controversy about how old a variety of tomato needs to be in order to be considered an heirloom¹). Some heirlooms are recorded as having been cultivated for hundreds of years or more.

An HEIRLOOM TOMATO is one that has been selectively reproduced for certain characteristics, perhaps a certain trait that is best suited for a growing region or a certain color or flavor. It may be the best one for canning/bottlings because of its acidic content. Or maybe a variety that is huge and juicy, where one slice fills an entire sandwich! Some varieties of heirloom tomatoes include Black Beauty, Brandywine, Chocolate Stripes, Green or Red Zebra, Big Rainbow, and many more. As the names would suggest, heirloom tomatoes come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors.

Many would argue that heirloom tomatoes are more flavorful. I have personally grown Brandywine for several years and can attest that they are delicious and juicy. They also can grow to be quite large, but the same vine could also produce medium or smallish fruit. They are not completely consistent in size, but always tasty!

A word of caution: Watch your heirloom tomatoes and don’t let them over-ripen on the vine. Since the colors of an heirloom can vary so much from what most people are used to, like that “tomato red” we all see on hybrid varieties we buy at the grocery store, it can be quite easy to not know an heirloom is ready for harvesting until it’s too late. Read up on the particular heirloom tomatoes you choose so you can be aware of what to watch for to assess ripeness.

Since an heirloom tomato is one that has been specifically selected over generations of plants for its traits, it is possible to take the seeds from a tomato grown in a home garden and use them to grow that same variety during the next growing season. (IMPORTANT NOTE: If your heirloom tomato cross-pollinates with some other variety of tomato in your garden, you will end up with seeds that are not true to the original plant. If you’re interested in preventing this from happening, there are guides on how to prevent cross-pollination.)

A HYBRID TOMATO is one that is the result of intentionally cross-pollinating two different varieties of tomato. This means the “child” plant will have characteristics of both of the “parent” plants. These tomatoes can be very hardy, disease resistant, and produce fruit that is consistent in size and shape. Being disease resistant is probably the biggest and most important benefit. There are few things as frustrating as growing a big beautiful plant, have lots of fruit forming, then get a plant virus that destroys your crop.

Some popular varieties of hybrid tomatoes are Big Beef, Cherry, Sweet 100, Early Girl, Better Boy, and Grape.

The biggest difference between heirloom and hybrid tomatoes…

…is what kind of 2nd generation fruit will grow from this year’s plant. You can’t be certain what kind of tomato will grow from the seed of a hybrid. Often the seeds are sterile and will not sprout at all. In the event that they do sprout, they probably won’t be the same as the plant you harvested them from. We planted a Cherry tomato two years ago and had lots of volunteer plants growing in that area of the garden the next season. We let a few of them grow and found that the plant produced fruit that was pea size, or smaller! They were delicious but a real pain to harvest.

Be sure to check your local independent garden shop, like Western Gardens in Salt Lake City, to find the most popular varieties that will do well in your climate and area. The locals will have the biggest variety and most unique varieties for you to enjoy.

Either way, the difference between heirloom and hybrid tomatoes may not matter to you. Nevertheless, whichever you chose to plant in your garden, they have one big thing in common: they are designed to be eaten and enjoyed!

Plant Peas – Our Favorite Varieties

April 26, 2017 by Marjorie Carter

Each year as we get to the last few weeks of winter, my husband and I watch for the first day when it is warm enough for us to work outside in our garden for a few hours so we can plant peas. We can’t wait to get them in the ground! Though along the Wasatch front, we typically don’t plant until March, we’ve planted them as early as mid-February (straight in the ground; no greenhouse) and still had great success. Peas are a cool weather plant that needs little attention beyond watering and harvesting. They tolerate snow and light frost so don’t be afraid to plant peas early.

KIDS & PEAS … Planting peas is a great activity to do with young children. The seeds are a real bonus to work with:

They are large enough that they are easy for small fingers to pick up.
They are also easy to find after the inevitable spill.
Planting is as simple as sticking your finger in to the ground, dropping in a seed, and covering with soil.

Again, the size of the seed made this something I could do with my 18 month old. She has helped plant every year since and even gets upset if she thinks she’s being left out of the planting process for the peas.

Peas and carrots on dinner plate - photo by CongerDesign - Pixabay CC0 license

Fun idea to see and eat the peas the children grow. That is if you can get any that far into the house from the garden!

FRESH PEAS IN THE GARDEN… My husband will only eat shelled peas that are freshly picked from the garden. If they’ve been cooked, frozen, canned, or otherwise tampered with, he will not touch them. (He’ll eat snap peas in stir fry). When our daughter was very young, we’d go out in the garden to pick peas and she’d eat as many as we’d give her. Her preferred method was eating them straight out of our hands. She will still eat as many as she can get her hands on, but she’s big enough to do the picking and shelling on her own now.

OUR FAVORITE VARIETIES…We’ve tried lots of varieties of peas over the past several years (Green Arrow, Alaska, Snap Peas, Little Marvel, Blue, and more) and have found that our favorites for flavor and abundance on the vine are Little Marvel (a shelling pea) and Snap Peas (edible pods, no shelling required). We also grow Blue shelling peas because their flower is so beautiful. If you’ve never seen a blue pea, the flowers are purple and white and the pea pods are a dark purple/blue color, making them easy to find on the vine. Buy quality seeds from your local garden center like Western Garden Centers in Salt Lake City and West Valley, Utah.

DID YOU KNOW… Peas are one of the oldest known vegetables. Archaeologists have found them in ancient tombs at Troy and Thebes. Dried peas keep indefinitely. This allowed them to survive the ocean voyage to become one of the first crops grown by English colonists coming to North America.

DID YOU KNOW… Peas are “nitrogen fixers”, meaning they take nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert it to ammonia (which is chemically comprised of nitrogen and hydrogen), thereby making the nitrogen available to other plants and organisms in the soil. This means peas are a great spring crop because they naturally help fertilize your soil prior to planting other garden fruits and vegetables that need nitrogen in order to thrive (think tomatoes!).

TIP: To maximize this benefit, at the end of the peas’ growing season, trim the plant off at the soil line instead of pulling them out, leaving the roots behind.

GROWING TIP … A friend suggested presoaking the peas prior to placing them in the soil. This will soften the seeds and allow them to germinate more quickly. Soak for around 12 hours, no more than 24, before planting. We tried it this year because we wish our peas would sprout sooner. It worked! Our peas were sprouted and broken through the soil less than 10 days after planting them, instead of 2 weeks or more. We look forward to eating our peas that much sooner this year!

FALL PLANTING … After the summer heat is gone (about Labor Day), plant peas again for a fall crop. Read the package of which variety will produce according to the time you have.

Hmm… Sounds like something new to try with our garden this fall.

National Zucchini Bread Day

April 20, 2017 by Heather Leister

Welcome Zucchini Lovers. Celebrate with us!

You are just in time for National Zucchini Bread Day! If you included zucchini in last summer’s garden then there’s a good chance that your freezer is well stocked with leftovers from last year’s harvest. This easy to grow squash is notorious for producing more crop than gardeners know what to do with. If you still have a ziplock bag, or two, of frozen zucchini hanging around then you’re in luck! Now is the perfect time to defrost your zucchini leftovers because April 25th is National Zucchini Bread Day.

sliced zucchini bread for national food holiday

Photo Credit: Flickr Commons

Who doesn’t love an excuse to celebrate a national food day? With zucchini bread you have a way to satisfy your craving for warm carbohydrates while also getting in a serving of vegetables. Not to mention fiber! It’s always a plus when your fiber comes in the form of delicious bread. As an added bonus you’ll be able to either use up freezer leftovers or have an excellent excuse for finally starting your garden.

zucchini for national zucchini bread day

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

If you don’t already have zucchini in your freezer, don’t panic. Pick up the produce at your local store and use fresh zucchini in your bread recipe. Then head to the garden center for seeds and celebrate National Zucchini Bread Day by planting something that you will enjoy both in a few months time and at next year’s celebration!

several varieties of zucchini seed packets

Quality seeds for a successful crop! Choose varieties that will thrive in your area.

Mid May happens to be an excellent time to plant zucchini seeds because the ground has begun to warm up. You can also begin your seeds indoors, but if you want to direct-seed and avoid transplanting then it’s best to wait until the soil temperature measures around 60-degrees. Check with your local independent garden center to know when it is ideal for planting your seeds. In Utah along the Wasatch Front, gardeners remember Mother’s Day as the time when the rest of the garden can be planted. Cold crops can be planted as early as March. Zucchini is definitely not a cold crop.

grate and freeze fresh zucchini for national zucchini bread day in april

Photo Credit: Flickr

In the fall, if your plants have done well, you will most likely find yourself giving away zucchini. To friends, neighbors, coworkers, maybe even strangers. Even after all that generosity you should still have plenty of zucchini left to freeze for the following year. Preserving the squash is easily done. Wash the zucchini in cold water, pat it dry, then cut off both ends. Use a cheese grater to grate the plant and then store the grated zucchini in a well-labeled ziplock bag in the freezer. The vegetable should keep in the freezer for approximately eight months. Which means you’ll be prepared and ready to bake when National Zucchini Bread Day comes around again!

Click next for a simple delicious Banana Zucchini Chocolate Chip bread recipe. It will please everyone!

5 Tips to Get Kids Gardening

June 10, 2016 by Jenn Crookston

Do you love planning out your garden? Do you eagerly anticipate all the delicious food you’ll be enjoying after all the hard work of caring for a garden? This is one of the highlights of Spring at our house!

But there always seems to be one downfall.

Life gets crazy and everyone gets busy, and no one wants to help. It turns into a bit of a Henny Penny situation…everyone wants to enjoy the delicious garden produce as long as I do all the work! And I bet it’s not just our family.

Over the years, I’ve come up with 5 tips to get kids gardening. These are easy tips for busy families, and they’ll help your garden look its best all summer long!

These 5 tips should help cover a variety of children’s personalities as well as their daily mood, and it’s nice to have a surprise in your back pocket if yesterday’s plan doesn’t work today!

5 Tips to get Kids Gardening

1. Get them their own tools

Everything is more fun if you’ve got your own supplies (bonus points if they’re cute and they match!). It’s also easier for kids to work with tools that fit them, and when it’s easier they’re a lot more likely to want to help!

(photo source)

2. Let Them Choose What You Grow

If they’re excited about the food you’re going to grow, chances are they’ll be excited about working in the garden to keep their plants healthy and growing strong. You can even give them a section of the garden to be in charge of. If they do all their own weeding and watering and harvesting, they’ll have a great sense of accomplishment!

3. Involve Friends

I know this might sound strange. What kid wants to go somewhere else and do chores? I’ve found that when kids are working with their friends, they don’t seem to mind the work. It can be fun if they’re working together, and popsicles are the perfect payment on a hot summer day!

4. Let Them Earn Money

If your child is driven by money, offer to let them have a produce stand with the extra veggies! We always seem to have a plethora of certain veggies (zucchini comes to mind!). Your produce stand can be as easy as some baskets set out on the curb, a folding table, or something as cute as this⬇︎

(photo source)

5. Work With Them

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t matter if it’s a job inside the house or out in the yard, our children work harder and more happily when we’re working with them. I like to set aside about 30 minutes several mornings each week to work with my kids, weeding and cleaning up the garden area. This allows the kids to ask questions and get guidance and when we’re all working together, the work gets done quickly.
What tips do you have for getting kids to help you in the garden? Let me know in a comment below!

Cool Season Vegetables vs. Warm Season Vegetables

May 19, 2016 by Vanessa Myers

Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!

Are you itching for beautiful weather so you can get your veggies planted? You are not alone! Fresh vegetables are the highlight of most gardens, with fresh, healthy and delicious produce. Just make sure to plant the right veggies at the right time to get the best results!

Vegetable garden season is upon us and many gardeners are happily planning out their shopping trips to the nursery. It’s tempting to put out every kind of vegetable that you want to grow, all at the same time.

However, it’s important to know whether the types you are planting are cool season vegetables or warm season vegetables so that you can plant them at the appropriate times and help ensure the best crop possible.

Click NEXT to see the Cool Season Veggies and when to plant them!

Image by *Jay~bay* under a Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives License

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10 Veggies to Plant Now to Save Money Later

May 18, 2016 by Jenn Crookston

Hello! So glad to you’re here!

Do you love fresh, delicious produce, but you also love saving money? Then you’re in the right place! I’m sharing ten of my favorite veggies that not only taste better grown at home, but’ll keep more green in your wallet, too!

I am blessed with a household of children who love to eat veggies. When I hear parents planning/plotting ways to get more veggies into their children’s diet I say a silent prayer of gratitude that isn’t a battle I have to fight!

But because we love our veggies so much, we tend to fly through them, especially during the summer months, when it’s hot and a heavy meal is too much. This year, instead of running to the grocery store every other day, we can just run out to the garden!

Let me start by saying, if your family hates tomatoes, growing them yourself probably won’t make your kids suddenly love them (even though they definitely taste better than store-bought!).

So before you start planting, think of things your family enjoys and build around that. Eat a ton of spinach? Plant a ton! Love kale, but hate spending $5 every week for a bag of organic baby leaves? Put that on your garden list. Save money by planting what you’ll actually eat and cross them off your grocery list!

There are a ton of great veggies that grow well here in Utah. My list saves me money every year and they taste amazing fresh from the garden (and yes, I know a tomato isn’t botanically a vegetable, but in our house it falls into that category!).

Click NEXT to see what 10 garden veggies are saving me money!

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9 Plants you need for your Salsa Garden

May 14, 2016 by Kirsten

Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here!

Do you love fresh pico de gallo, chili verde salsa or red salsa with tortilla chips? Then a Salsa Garden is perfect for you! We love enjoying any of these with our favorite Mexican dishes, and what’s better than being able to make it from fresh veggies from your own garden?! The taste of homegrown tomatoes vs. store-bought is huge…homegrown tomatoes are so much more delicious and flavorful—and it’s exciting to be able to say “I grew that!”

If you have never grown a garden in your yard, I suggest getting your soil tested. The cost is about $10 and can be done at USU in Logan, Utah. You can just mail in a sample and they can tell you the P and K levels, pH, salt, and lime content, which can help you find out what your soil might need before you spend money on your plants and take the time to plant and water them. Knowing these levels can help you avoid things like bottom rot and make sure you get the most out of your plants.

Avoid planting your veggies until the overnight temps are at least 50° or above. This is typically around May 15th in Utah. Watch your local forecast…our Utah weather is famous for being temperamental!

Ready to get started with the 9 veggies? Click NEXT to see what to plant!

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