I have always wanted to make my own salsa, and I anticipate in the next year or so I will be able to do that when my wife graduates and we find her a great job in a larger city. My plan is to start our own garden, and grow all the essential things I will need to create original, authentic sauces, including bitingly hot, spicy salsa.

I would really like to experiment with hot sauces like Louisiana style, Mexican, and Asian style sauces. In order to make a hot sauce with my garden, I needed to become familiar with the Scoville scale that measures hotness. I also needed to become extremely familiar with jalapenos

I do not know much about gardening, but the area where we live is very fertile, and there are lots of people around who know how to do it, so I can get some real pointers from them. My brother in law, as a matter of fact, comes from a family where the dad grew vegetables in a huge backyard garden. They were always giving us peppers, squash, onions, tomatoes, and all sorts of great vegetables that I knew would work wonderfully in a salsa mix.

So what I will need to do first is investigate about home gardening, and find out which peppers and other vegetables grow well in the area that we will be moving to. Then I will need to decide how large I want the garden to be. In order to do that, I will simply reference the information on the Internet, and also get some advice from friends that have small gardens. I suppose it would not hurt to visit the local do it yourself store as well, since I will be headed there anyway for seed and fertilizer.

One question I will have is what kind of yield to expect? Once I have my garden set up and ready to go, I need to have some kind of idea on how much food will be grown in that area. Then I can prepare for it, and when it is time to harvest the vegetables, I will have plenty of storage space for all the produce.

After harvesting, I will review some recipes for salsa. I’m already a fairly good cook, so once I’ve learned a recipe and it turns out well, then I will feel comfortable experimenting with different seasonings and combinations of peppers. Afterwards, I can share my new, homegrown concoction with some friends, and if they like it than perhaps I will approach the local grocer. Salsa is definitely one of my favorite foods. Hot or mild, sweet, tangy, sour, it doesn’t matter, I love it all.

It will take some work, and I know there are some unexpected challenges coming my way with the idea of starting a garden, but I think it will be worth it. I look forward to the upcoming year and the prospect of learning how to start my own garden, harvest it, and create a delicious salsa that everyone will love!

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