From a zesty Mexican salsa to a thick and hearty Italian sauce simmered for hours on your stove, tomato based sauces are the cornerstone for a variety of meals that will keep your crew begging for more. Best of all, you can easily grow the ingredients right in your own backyard garden.
A sunny spot in the yard will do for all of the plants in this garden. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, parsley, oregano, basil and cilantro should be on the list of plants to grow. Two to three plants of each will provide a summer of fresh salsa and Italian sauce. And while it's easy for us to create these culinary delights, it took centuries and many miles for our ancestors to find the perfect combinations.
Centuries ago, high in the Andes, natives were cultivating the fruit of the tomato. When the Aztecs settled in southern Mexico, they brought the tomato with them. The Conquistadors came into contact with the Aztec culture and brought the seed of the tomato back to Europe.
Around 1550, Italians cooked the first red sauce. Meanwhile, south of the border, Mexicans had already been feasting on salsa and pico de gallo for several hundred years. Both groups eventually found their way to Colorado and brought with them different varieties of tomatoes and great family recipes. Today, Coloradoans can create a simple vegetable garden that is a combination of four herbs and four vegetables, the American Melting Pot Garden.
The key ingredient for these meals is the tomato. A paste tomato, either pear or plum shaped is good for a thicker salsa and red Italian sauce. Popular varieties for their flavor are Roma, Viva Italia or La Roma. The Roma tomato will weigh around two ounces and will take up to 75 days to mature. Viva Italia and La Roma will weigh three to four ounces and mature at around 62 days.
For a juicy salsa or thinner red sauce, choose from one of the popular slicing tomatoes. Big Boy, Celebrity and Early Girl are American classics. Big Boy and Celebrity will take 72-75 days to mature and weigh between eight and ten ounces. Early Girl will match the weight and mature within only 52 days.
Next, onions and garlic are a must for the garden. You can choose from varieties that are best for storing or those that need to be used in a relatively short period of time. Garlic for winter storing is the German Extra Hardy. New York White garlic is best for using fresh from the garden. A mild sweet onion good for storing would be the Super Star. A recommended sweet Spanish onion is the Colorado 6. Both onions mature between an average of 100-104 days.
The vegetable garden would be incomplete without sweet peppers and hot peppers. Three excellent sweet pepper varieties to choose from are Blushing Beauty, Gypsy and Dove. They will mature within 65-75 days. Sweet or hot peppers can be picked green or left on the vine to ripen to shades of red.
Unique among peppers it that they are graded for the amount of heat they generate. Whether, it is a mild or wild zest you are looking for, there is sure to be something to please you. Using the Jalapeno pepper as the standard for average heat, the chart compares peppers. The scale used is a simple heat level rating scale of 0-10. Zero is for the meek, graduating to 10 for true chili lovers:
| Variety |
Flavor |
Heat Scale |
Capsaicin % |
|---|
Bell
|
sweet |
0 |
pleasure |
Conquistador
|
mild |
1 |
Anaheim
|
mild hot |
2 |
to |
Jalapeno
|
sweet, medium |
5 |
Cayenne
|
hot |
10 |
| Habanero |
Fiery |
Off this chart! |
pain |
Other spices to grow in the garden are the herbs. Cilantro and sweet basil are both annuals. Santos is the cilantro variety recommended because it is slow to bolt compared to other varieties. Oregano is an easy to grow perennial. Parsley is a biennial that will reseed itself and makes a good companion plant for Oregano.
Four vegetables and four herbs and the fresh choice for dinner is yours. Whatever your heritage may be, no fonder memories do most families have than home cooked meals at mom's and dad's. Start your own family traditions with fresh food from your garden to your table.
For more information on Gardening, contact your
local Colorado State University Extension office. |
