Planting with purpose: Salsa, pesto gardens offer compact source of ingredients for favorite dishes

A bowl of salsa is displayed.
A bowl of salsa is displayed.

Salsa recipe

Using your harvest Your salsa garden is overflowing with veggie bounty, but what to do with it? Here's a recipe from the Ooltewah Nursery that will turn your harvest into about two pints of fresh salsa. 10 medium roma tomatoes, cut in half 3 cloves of garlic 1 medium red onion 1 bunch of fresh cilantro 1 tablespoon seasoning salt 1 teaspoon black pepper Dried cumin to taste Lime juice to taste Jalapeos to taste Fill the blender with tomato halves until it's three-quarters full. Add remaining ingredients and pulse to desired consistency. Note: Use more or less jalapeos for desired level of heat. Also, when chopping the jalapeos, leave the seeds in for hotter salsa or remove them before chopping for a mild flavor.

Salsa not your thing?

Here are some other ideas from Bonnie Plants for 4-foot-square, raised-bed gardens planted with a culinary purpose: ' Tomato and Pesto Garden: 4 sweet basil, 2 Greek oregano, 1 Italian parsley, 1 slicing tomato (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Beefsteak, etc.), 1 cherry tomato ' Herb Garden: 1 rosemary, 3 chives, 4 parsley (Italian or curled), 2 sweet basil, 2 sweet mint, 1 oregano (Greek or variegated), 1 thyme (German, lemon or lemon variegated) ' Mediterranean Garden: 2 Greek oreganos, 22 onions, 2 sweet basil, 1 rosemary, 1 Roma tomato, 1 Black Beauty eggplant ' Pizza Garden: 1 Greek oregano, 1 sweet basil, 1 Spicy Globe basil, 2 Italian parsley, 1 rosemary, 22 onions, 1 caged or trellised roma tomato, 1 caged or trellised banana pepper (hot or sweet), 1 caged or trellised Bonnie Green bell pepper

Salsa is good. Fresh salsa is even better. Not having to go to the store for ingredients? That's priceless.

Well, not exactly priceless, experts say, but more and more salsa lovers are flocking to compact, easy-to-maintain container and raised-bed gardens as an all-in-one source for ingredients used in their favorite dip.

"It's not older gardeners who are doing this. It's more younger folks and millennials who want to start gardening but don't want to jump into it whole scale and put a big garden in," says Greg Miller, the general manager of Ooltewah Nursery and Landscape Co.

Miller, who holds a master's degree in horticulture from the University of Tennessee, says amateur green thumbs are attracted to so-called "salsa gardens" because even a small garden can produce enough to make salsa once or twice a week while requiring minimal upkeep and expense.

"This way, [new gardeners] kind of learn what they're doing," he says. "It's an experimental process. They learn as they go without putting a large investment into the plants and stuff. I think it's just the convenience of having everything in one container."

A salsa garden is one of the most common types of specialized culinary garden, but a quick Internet search will turn up plans for similar projects that will yield almost all the necessary ingredients for dishes such as pesto and marinara.

Chattanooga is ideally located for these types of projects, Miller says, adding that Ooltewah Nursery hosted a well-received workshop on creating salsa gardens to coincide with Cinco De Mayo last year.

The Scenic City has a long growing season - the dates between the first and last frosts of the year - and tends to get plenty of sunlight, a crucial factor in the growth of salsa's foundation ingredients: tomatoes and jalapenos. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture map of plant hardiness zones, Chattanooga's 7B designation makes it well-suited for growing many of the vegetables and herbs used in salsa, pestos and other sauces.

"We're blessed with good growing conditions," Miller says. "You can tailor [the garden] to your taste, as far as dishes you really like."

Although a themed garden can be planted in any location, experts say they are ideally suited to a raised-bed garden or container gardening, which can be customized for optimal growing conditions.

"You have a good, loose soil in [a container or raised-bed garden]," says John Jones, the shrub lot manager at Holcomb Garden Center in Hixson. "Most of the soil around here is clay soil or chert-y soil - it has a lot of rocks in it, and it's stiff - so it packs back together when it rains. Plants like loose soil so the roots can grow."

A raised bed or container garden also can be positioned in locations with the appropriate mix of sun and shade, and tends to have fewer issues with weeds. This approach offers gardeners greater control over the growing process, Miller says.

"You can go organic, so you control any kind of chemicals you use," he says. "It's easier to monitor the plants. You can notice a lot sooner if there's a problem and be pre-emptive about it. There are lots of benefits to doing a smaller-scale garden."

Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.

Growing a salsa garden

What you'll need ' 10-gallon pot or raised-bed garden ' Potting soil ' Jalapeno seedlings ' Roma tomato seedlings ' Cilantro seedlings ' Water and plenty of sun Planting/maintenance ' Find a suitable location for the garden that gets full sun - at least six hours a day. ' If planting in a pot, fill the bottom with rocks, positioning one over the drainage hole to keep the water in. ' Fill the container or garden with potting soil - up to about eight inches from the top of the pot. Use a soil-less mix with no top soil. To help prevent blossom-end rot in your tomatoes, add a bit of lime. Mix in compost or organic fertilizer as you go. ' Water thoroughly. You'll know it's suitably wet when a finger dipped three to four inches below the surface is moist. ' Plant the jalapenos seeds with at least a foot of room separating them since they tend to grow significantly. ' Next to the jalapenos, plant the roma tomatoes seedlings so that 50 to 75 percent of the plant is covered. These need about a foot of separation. ' Plant cilantro seeds along the rim of the pot. As they grow, they will spill over the sides. ' For large-enough containers or raised beds, you also can plant additional ingredients such as garlic, green or yellow onions and oregano. ' Pack more soil around the plants until the level of the soil is about one inch from the top. Water again and then once a week. ' Yield times will vary, but a first harvest could come as early as six weeks, depending on growing conditions. Sources: Ooltewah Nursery and Landscape Co., Holcomb Garden Center, HGTV. ' Sweet and Spicy Pepper Garden: 1 bell pepper (Big Early, Bonnie's Green, yellow, red, orange, fajita or Big Bertha), 1 snacking pepper (Yummy or Sweet Banana), 1 small chili pepper (Chile Red, Tabasco, Thai Hot, Serrano or Cayenne), 1 cherry pepper (Sweet Cherry, Hot Cherry or Pimiento), 1 thin-walled pepper (Cubanelle or Giant Marconi), 1 jalapeno (Mucho Nacho, Mammoth or TAM Mild)

Upcoming Events