Our Garden

In September 2011 my husband and I decided to start a garden. The desert has a long growing season and  generally if you can create the soil and keep the water plentiful through September to November you can have a great many veggies!

We are townhome dwellers so we do not have the area to build a garden of our own so we made a proposal to some family members who had a garden that had laid fallow for several years.

It is a good sized raised garden, that needed a lot of work.  The tarps were covered with Tomato cages and under the tarps was an awful lot of grass.

The garden is shaded on the south by 40 foot Oleanders and has sun shades as well as 2 areas for vertical growing. I have waited a very long time for homegrown cucumbers.

. 

 Clearing away the old growth did not take as long as we originally thought. It was probably a total of 10 hours.

Half of the grass was cleared away in two three hour days. The grass that grew between the edgeing stones was a pain, but have pick will travel.

By the 4th weekend the garden was partially planted and a lot of the grass pods were pulled out. I know we have a ton of those creatures still laying dormant in the garden but they will come out as we come across them.

 

Baby Tomatoes!

Glorious Broccoli!

Peppers!

Phoenix's  fall and early winter is usually dry, but Fall 2011 was a whole other story. It rained from October to December and our plants were over watered simply by the deluge not to mention the sprinklers that were on a timer that we did not think to adjust!

The end of the first fall garden was not a total failure, actually it was a great learning experience. We are getting ready for the spring and summer season. I have high hopes! 

If I liked Dandelion greens I would have harvested them, but since they are a little too wild for my city girl tastes I ripped them out and tossed them.

Never knew that Broccoli had such beautiful yellow flowers once it has gone to seed. The bees were going crazy over the 2 Broccoli plants. I hope they won't forget about us when our new plants flower :)

The one tomato plant that survived the winter rains was an heirloom, I am quite excited about the amount of tomatoes that it should produce.

And so the tilling of the soil began again. The soil itself is a rich brown-black and looks like it could produce a good crop for us this season! Lord knows the spring warmth is upon us and the sunshine sure is plentiful.

The whole plot was hand tilled save one tomato plant that looked quite healthy.

Zuchinni and tomatoes are in their places!After the first day I was so very tired. Look at how lovely the soil is.

The Green Beans and Cucumbers are now settled as well. All in all it was a long day of digging, kneeling, squating and using my body in ways I have not since September. Most of the work has been done, but I still have a few plants to get in the ground before the end of the week.

Once all 22 plants were in their places the cage maze was erected. This year the maze appears that it may be easier to move around in once the plants mature.

This season I planted a large variety of tomato plants (Roma, heirloom, red grape, yellow pear, beefsteak), Jalapeno, Poblano peppers, yellow bell and red bell,  1 Swiss chard, 4 cucumbers, green beans, dill, and 3 Zucchini. I think its is fair to say I will have tomatoes and cucumbers coming out of my ears.

I was dubious about Chard. I have had it cooked and was not impressed, but raw it could be a whole other story.

One last picture of one of my Roma plants. I sure do have high hopes for these guys as we eat a lot of Roma Tomatoes.

We went out the garden today (3/25/12) and relocated the Chard, sewed some lettuce seed, planted some leeks, and wandered around the yard to check out the fruit trees.

The Blackberry Bush is blooming 

One very happy bumble bee was flitting from bloom to bloom doing his job.

Notice the small stick coming out the ground...that is a dwarf peach tree. It is the saddest peach tree I've ever seen, but it produces fruit so we shall see what kind of fruit we get. Peaches are one of my favorite fruits.

See the teeny peaches in the picture above?

Our lovely apple tree is producing! They will be ready come June and I cannot wait until they are ready! My juicer will be put to good use.