Latino Vegetables Gardening: The Sadness of Saying Adios to Summer

August 2024
By Kim Caviness
Recipe from Everywhere Latino

Hola Familia Kitchen homecooks and non-cooking foodie friends from all over the world who love Latino food. It’s Familia Kitchen co-founder Kim, checking in at the start of Labor Day Weekend with an ode to tomatoes, chiles, bell peppers, zucchini and other summertime fruits and vegetables we love to eat and (sometimes) grow.

Labor Day is complicated, isn’t it? On the one hand: Three day weekend! On the other, end-of-summer tristeza. May we all get outside to grill, sink our toes in the scratchy grass, mix happy Latino drinks (Mojito? Pisco sour? Mezcal paloma?), and generally hang afuera as much as we can.

tomato garden Kim — Tomatoes are my all-time favorite thing to grow. You’ll find Romas, slicers, and cherry tomatoes in my garden beds.

Personally, I am fighting off the sadness of verano’s end this year by sowing seeds. I know. That sounds so archaic and 18^th century. And for a girl who grew up in the cracked cement-sidewalks of Condado, Puerto Rico, it’s been a shocking development. I blame COVID, when we were all forced to stay home and get resourceful. I took up dirt and seeds. At that same time, my co-founder Lisa and I were pouring our hearts and souls into launching Familia Kitchen for our ever-growing community of homecooks who love comida Latina. Two obsessions came together.

Garden beds Kim home garden Latino vegetables — Adding these garden beds made all the difference to my vegetable gardening. They are easy to build, I swear.

I’ve since fallen in endless love with vegetable gardening. It started with planting Latino-ingredient favorites: tomatoes, calabaza (squash), cilantro, and lots of chiles: serranos, jalapeños, plus green bell and cubanelle peppers for Puerto Rican recipes. Then I got into sowing garlic over the winter (you plant a clove in late October and you get a whole head the next June! It’s crazy.). I went nuts and kept going, planting something like 25 different vegetables. Now I’m adding native flowers and pollinators to help the vegetables grow bigger, healthier, and sweeter. I. Can’t. Stop.

garlic Kim home garden Latino vegetables — Planting garlic in late October has turned my gardening summer hobby into a year-round obsession. Each clove you sow turns into a whole head of garlic nine months later. It feels like a miracle.

If there was a mistake to make in vegetable gardening, I have made it. I knew nothing, literally, when I started gardening. That first year I stumbled into beginner’s luck and almost everything bloomed. The second year, nothing grew. Literally: nothing. So I mail-ordered and built garden beds (They’re easy, like Legos. It’s fun, I swear.). The third year, the garden did OK. This fourth year, wow. Thanks to mucho rain and those garden beds, almost everything grew. I have enough left over to give away tomatoes, chiles and garlic to friends.

chile serrano jalapeno cubanelle pepper Kim home garden Latino vegetables — A sampling of the garden’s serrano and jalapeño chiles, garlic, and cubanelle peppers, which I used in Puerto Rican dishes as a substitute for harder-to-find ají dulces. Ají dulce will be the next pepper I try to grow en mi jardín for the first time, next summer.

This Labor Day Weekend, when I have to say goodbye to many plant friends, I am fighting back. For the first time, I will keep the cooking-Latino-from-fresh going by starting a fall garden .(Am sowing seeds for hardy things like: radishes to sprinkle on pozole, cilantro, lettuce, scallions, and carrots.) That will get me through October, when it’s time to plant garlic again to overwinter. And then it all begins again next spring. The obsesión lives on.

In the meantime, I’ve assigned myself a Labor Day Weekend cooking challenge. How do I use up every last fresh tomato, chile, pepper, garlic clove, zucchini, and cilantro sprig? With Familia Kitchen recipes, of course. Below are the dishes I’m eyeing, all delicioso family faves from our talented Familia Kitchen homecooks. What about you? I’d love to hear what you are cooking up this long weekend!—[email protected] ⬇️

patacones recipe — Got fresh tomatoes? This Colombian recipe for patatones with tomato-rich hogao are one of my favorite recipes to make.

Garlic in mofongo recipe — Let your homegrown garlic shine in this Puerto Rican traditional dish starring ajo: Shrimp mofongo.

Chimichurri Michelle recipe — This unique chimichurri uses both cilantro and parlsey, a delicioso use for homegrown herbs while fresh and flavorful.

Enchiladas recipe with zucchini — If you have a lot of summer squash in your garden that need a great recipe, try these family-famous nchiladas made with zucchini and serrano chiles.

Find more family-famous Latino recipes at FamiliaKitchen.com!

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Kim Caviness is Familia Kitchen’s co-founder, CEO and editor in chief. She grew up in Santurce, Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mom and American dad. She loves feeding family and friends. Kim learned to cook watching her mom, Marisa, throw dinner parties on the island and later in the States. And from “El Libro”: the Puerto Rican cooking bible, Carmen Aboy Valldejuli’s Cocina Criolla.