Happy Mother's Day!

One of my most loyal readers, a.k.a, my mom, sent me an email yesterday asking me to post pictures of how the garden is coming along. (Hi Mom! Happy Mother's Day!) I am happy to oblige. There are a lot of extreme closeups in here, since almost everything is either a little seedling right now, or still in the planning stages, but you get the idea.

I am trying again with corn this year, and so far, it's coming along well. (I've figured out that last year's corn problem was lack of proper pollination. There are lots of videos out there on how to painstakingly pollinate corn when the time comes, but the azplantlady suggests simply giving the stalk a good shake to help with pollination. That, I can handle.)

I've decided to try a "three sisters" technique, where I interplant the corn with beans and squash. (Well, actually, beans and pumpkins, but same idea.) Here's a pic of the corn and beans getting started. The pumpkins are too small for a good picture yet.

I have very fond memories of my mom growing corn and pumpkins when I was a kid, so I definitely want to make it work for my little munchkin if I can. If I remember correctly (which is not a guarantee at all), I think my sister and I would play in my mom's corn patch in the back yard. It probably made her crazy that we were stomping all over her garden. I definitely remember the excitement of pumpkins--searching for them like prizes on the vine and watching them turn orange. I don't know why pumpkins in particular were so darn exciting as a kid, but they were.

Next up, we have okra. Loyal readers know that I am pretty much obsessed with okra. Mostly, I'm obsessed because the only store I've found it in around here that sells okra is half an hour away. Which means, if I want to eat it, I pretty much have to grow it. Plus, it's one of those rare plants that actually like Arizona summers. Here's a little okra seedling nestled up to a little sunflower seedling:

I don't have as much okra as I planned yet. So far, I only have about half a dozen seedlings. I'm not sure why more seedlings aren't popping up, but I've ordered another pack of seeds from Native Seeds and plan to see if they are more successful.

I'm not 100% sure where I'll put them though, since I have some volunteers in the place where I planned okra. I'm pretty sure they are volunteer honeydews, but time will tell. Here's my favorite garden model (and my most loyal reader's granddaughter), showing off the volunteer plants (i.e., the ones with the yellow flowers):

Next up, grapes. I think I planted these guys about a year and half ago? Maybe two? I can't really remember. But they are finally starting to develop fruit, which is very exciting. When they get bigger, I plan to cover them with brown paper lunch bags to protect them from hungry birds--a tip I learned in my Desert Gardening book. I also plan to pick up some squash seeds this weekend--probably zuchinni and butternut squash--to plant at the base of the grapes. I'm hoping they will shade the roots and help them survive the summer heat.

This weekend, I'm planting a lot of new plants in the garden as well. The munchkin gave me some plants as a gift earlier this week, and I also managed to buy a few for myself. Yesterday, I found some thornless blackberries. I'll be planting these in my unused side yard.

The munchkin got me some beautiful flowers, which I'm also planting. Yesterday, I planted a pentsimmon. I put it in a corner where it will get afternoon shade. I'm hoping that will help it with the Arizona heat.

The kiddo also got me a vinca, which is supposed to do really well in Arizona, and a purple flowering bush. (I can't remember the name of the bush right now. Maybe I'm just not getting too attached, since I'm skeptical it will survive the summer.)

So there's lots of planting going on today for Mother's Day, which sounds like a great day to me. Here's hoping the rest of you have a wonderful Mother's Day too!

Calling in the Cavalry

Yesterday, Noelle of azplantlady.com fame came to my house for a garden consultation. I have a few spots around the garden that have been vexing me, so I thought I’d get some help. I am so glad I did! I asked her questions about my front yard, back yard, side yard… you name it. She had great ideas for all!

Front yard

My husband and I have been thinking for a long time of replacing the trees in our front yard. They look like big, messy mops, need to be pruned a LOT, and don’t provide much shade. Epic fail. I had gotten my heart set on a Chilean Mesquite to replace at least one of the trees, and just thought I’d ask Noelle about placement.

Save #1 from Noelle! Apparently, of all the trees you see around this valley, Chilean Mesquites blow down the most often during our storm seasons. They also require a lot of pruning, which I’m probably too lazy for. So as beautiful as they are, Chilean Mesquites are out. Now I’m looking at a Vitex or Desert Musuem Palo Verde, which are also beautiful and much lower maintenance. Ah, that’s more like it.

Desert Museum Palo Verde or Vitex? How to Choose?

While she was at it, Noelle also gave me some great tips on good plants to fill out my landscape, how to save money getting the old trees removed, and finding an inexpensive, high-quality plants and trees.

Side yard

I have this big expanse of unused space in my side yard that grows nothing but weeds. It just gnaws at me that there’s nothing pretty or useful there. Save #2 from Noelle! I’ve been thinking of blackberries for quite a while now, and she says that’s a good spot for them. I should be able to fit a lot of them in and can even get thornless ones for pain-free picking. Sold!

Mmm. I can almost taste ‘em now

Back yard

Here’s where the real magic happened. Noelle helped me with lots of things, but most exciting of all, she helped me find room for another raised bed for vegetables. Be still my heart! (Guess what the hubby will be making me for Mother’s Day this year.) Expect to see pictures soon!

Noelle also gave me some great companion planting tips:

• Apple trees—Plant garlic around them to prevent borers.
• Grapes—Plant squash around them in the summer to shade the roots.
• Vegi beds—Plant thyme and basil throughout the beds in the summer to stave off bugs, marigolds and nasturtiums in the fall. Also, plant vines along the cinder block wall near the raised beds to prevent reflective heat from burning the vegis.

She also gave me some great ideas for creating special flower beds just for the kiddo, inexpensive and effective ways to fertilize and mulch the vegis, installing an irrigation system dedicated to the vegis, using organic ingredients for weed control… the list goes on and on.

Pretty awesome, right?

I Don't Think We're in Kansas Anymore, Toto

The transition from winter gardening to summer gardening is just about complete in my yard. Almost all the winter vegetables are gone now, and the summer ones are sprouting up or just about ready for planting.

If there's anything that's become clear to me during this transition (other than I desperately want someone else to weed my yard for me), it's that Arizona gardening just ain't the same as everywhere else. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Let's start with the season that just passed--winter. I planted four different types of onions this winter, and only one type ever made it to full-fledged onion bulbs. The rest just couldn't cut it in our Arizona weather, no matter how much time I gave them. (They were good for green onion tops though, so it wasn't a total bust.)

• Red Creoles--I planted these from seed in mid-October. They are supposed to reach maturity in 110 days. Six and a half months later, the biggest ones were maybe half an inch thick at the base.
• Sweet Spanish--I planted these from seed at the same time I planted the Red Creoles. They are supposed to reach maturity in 130 days. They were about as mature as the Red Creoles when I finally gave up and ripped them all out this weekend.
• Yellow Sweet Spanish?--I didn't keep very good records, so I'm guessing on this one. But I planted some yellow type onion from sets in November. Four months later, and they ain't nothing to write home about.
• Texas Granex--I planted these from sets in late January. A mere three months later, and they're ready for dinner. My one success.

Don't mess with Texas (Granex, that is)

I'm not really sure why some onions do better than others here (something about short day and long day varities). These folks at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System seem to know a lot more. The important thing that I learned though is that onions that do well other places just aren't going to do much here. Picking the right variety is immensely important.

Moving onto summer, I've learned another lesson the hard way about how different Arizona gardening really is. As I mentioned a while back, I got a little behind on my gardening this spring. I was out of town a lot and didn't have a chance to get things started from seed like I normally would. I figured I'd make up the difference by buying starts instead, but didn't even have a chance to get out to my favorite nurseries to buy them. "No problem!" I thought. "In this modern age, I can order anything online. Seedlings will come straight to my door and it won't take any time at all to plant them. Easy peasy!" Big mistake.

Ordering seeds from the Internet is just fine. Ordering seedlings (at least in Arizona) generally doesn't work out as planned. Here's the deal: If you go to just about any online site to order plants, they'll give you this whole spiel about how they will send you the plants at just the right time for your area to ensure success. Here's what they don't tell you: They're only keeping freeze dates in mind when they calculate the "right" time to send you the plants. They don't seem to account for "burn" dates at all.

So I ordered tomatoes, blueberries, and other plants with a very limited production period, and I got them months after I needed to plant them. Sure, there was no chance that they would freeze by the time I got them, but there was also just about no chance they'd live either. By the time I got them, it was way too late by Arizona standards. Quite frankly, I didn't even see the point in planting them, since I could pretty much guarantee they'd be burned to a crisp in no time. Plants like that can survive and produce here in Arizona, but like many of us, they need some time to gear up for the really hard weather. Without that time, they're just not going to make it.

So lessons learned. Choose the right varieties of plants for Arizona, and don't order seedlings from the Internet. Got it.

Now in case this all sounds glum, I should note that there are some really good things that set Arizona apart in terms of gardening too. If we plan it right, we can grow vegetables year round.  Things like okra, melons, and sweet potatoes can not only survive the heat here, they love it. Things like broccoli, lettuce, and spinach all do just fine throughout the winter. And spring and fall? Gardening nirvana!

Can you say that about Kansas?

Time to Get Moving on the Summer Garden

Lately, I’ve been neglecting the garden in a major way. I have been watering it on a regular basis, but that’s about it. Luckily, a lot of the garden is more or less taking care of itself. The peach tree I planted in barrel this winter is starting to grow peaches:

The boysenberry I planted in January has sprouted one pretty little boysenberry:

The onions and garlic that I planted last fall are going gangbusters:

The pomegranates, grapes, and apples that I planted over a year ago are all sprouting leaves and flowers like there’s no tomorrow:

But a lot of stuff is from the fall and winter is dying off—the peas, lettuce, spinach, and broccoli are all gone now. (The other day, the kid asked if she could please try some lettuce from the garden. I was absolutely thrilled until she spit it out. When I wasn't paying attention, it had gotten overgrown and bitter. I guess lettuce season is over.)

So I’ve been making some plans about what to plant for summer, taking some advice from Erica Strauss at Northwest Edible Life. Erica recommends rotating crops from season to season in the following order: root vegetable > legume > leaf  vegetable> fruiting vegetable. Using that as a guide, I cooked up a plan:

The left-hand column shows my four primary raised beds from my winter garden. The right-hand column shows what I plan to put in this summer. You can see where I had root vegetables (onions, garlic, potatoes), I plan to put in some legumes (beans, peas, peanuts) to get some nitrogen back into the soil. Where I had leafy vegetables (broccoli, spinach, lettuce, parsley), I have plans for following them up with fruiting vegetables (okra, bell peppers). In addition to the rotation schedule, I also took a few other location concerns into account. I think I have a pretty decent plan! With any luck, I'll be able to get out this weekend and get them all going.

Now, what do I do about all the weeds?

Remember, It’s Just a Hobby

Things have been nuts lately. I won’t bore you with the litany of everything I have going on. I’m sure you all know the drill—keeping up with work, keeping up with the kid, blah, blah, blah. And probably like many of the rest of you, I’m letting things slip. I was on a work trip during Valentine’s Day and my husband’s birthday and didn’t do anything. (I think that maybe I sent him a text.) I haven’t been keeping up with the kid’s homework. I haven’t been exercising. I’ve been blowing off my friends. This list goes on.  

So I guess it’s not surprising that I’ve been neglecting the garden too. Actually, I’m really surprised at how many things we’ve managed to keep alive during all this. (Bless my dear husband, who is not a gardener, but has been jumping into help while I’ve been away on trips.) I have managed to come up with a plan for the spring/summer garden, but have done exactly zip to implement it. I’ve been trying to pull myself together to get some seeds started indoors, but haven’t found the energy or the heart. With two more out-of-town trips coming up in March, it just seemed… unnecessary? Silly? Counter-productive? I don’t know. I just haven’t been able to make myself do it.

And like a shmuck, I’ve been feeling guilty about it. Guilty? Really? This is my hobby. This is what I’m supposed to do “get away from it all”—not another thing on the to-do list that makes me feel guilty when I don’t get to it. So I finally talked some sense into myself and decided to give myself a break.

Today, I pulled out my spring/summer garden plan to adjust it. I decided that I should plan on not getting much done (beyond watering what I’ve already got planted) until late March when I get back from a couple more out-of-town trips. And low and behold, when I let myself off the hook, everything turned out OK. I think there are a few plants that I’ll need to buy at the nursery instead of starting from seed, and the rest should be just fine if I get them started a little later outdoors. As my girl says, “Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.”

Even better, now that I’ve given myself a little room to breathe, I’m excited about the spring/summer garden again! It’s not just another thing I have to get done, it’s something to look forward to when I get back from my trips. Awesome. I’m back on track.

So pretty soon here—when I have time—I’ll post my plans. I’ve got some great things in store! 

Mama's Got a New Favorite

Until recently, I think I would have ranked okra as my favorite vegetable to grow. It thrives in our Arizona summers, it's gorgeous, and it makes yummy dinners. What's not to love? Well, don't tell okra, but I may have a new favorite. Look at this gorgeous broccoli:

Sigh. Ain't it purdy? And it's producing like crazy too. Those big plants each have a big head of broccoli on them AND about five little florets growing underneath. I mean, how awesome is that?

OK, so it's gorgeous. Big deal. So is okra. And it can produce a ton. So can okra. And it's easy is to grow, but so is okra. And it can take extreme Arizona temperatures (more about that below), but so can okra. What really sets it apart? Why aren't okra and broccoli tied? Why is broccoli my new favorite?

My 6 year old will eat it. Happily. She's EXCITED to watch it grow so she can eat it, which is very rare indeed. So that's it. Slam dunk. Mama's got a new favorite.

Assuming I've convinced you that you should grow broccoli, what do you need to know about growing it in Arizona? Not too much really. It's pretty easy. I think the key is just planting it at the right time. Last year I waited until Christmas time, which turned out to be way too late. Just as it started forming itty bitty florets, we had a warm spell in January and the broccoli started bolting. Major bummer.

This year, I started it in early November, and life is golden. Here's what I've done so far to take care of it:

• Planted it in full sun. 
• Watered it every two to three days.
• Gave it some fish emulsion fertilizer every two to three weeks or so. 
• Covered it with sheets during the major frosts.  

Pretty easy overall. It particularly impressed me during the frosts, which dropped down into the 20s. One night, for instance, I forgot to cover it, and it looked like this in the morning:

I thought it was a goner for sure, but based on the advice of the wise people in the Tucson Backyard Gardening Facebook group, I just left it undisturbed, let it warm up, and voila! It was back to normal (perhaps even thriving more) in no time.

Another key appears to be giving it full sun. I have six broccoli plants right now. All are producing, but the ones getting the most sun are the biggest and most productive. Fair enough. I like a little sunshine too.

I haven't harvested it yet, so I don't have any tips for you there. However, the wise and funny Erica at Northwest Edible Life has probably said everything that needs to be said on the subject, so I would say just listen to her: http://www.nwedible.com/2012/09/harvest-broccoli-cauliflower.html. Take a look for tips on figuring out EXACTLY when to harvest your broccoli and for making your broccoli plants produce the most they can. Also, she's got tips for making chicken pinatas. Need I say more?

Happy New Year!

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to get done in the garden in 2013, but it occurs to me that I can't really do a very good job setting this year's goals until I take a look at how I did with last year's goals. So I've been trolling through the archives to find my 2012 goals to review them. Looks like I didn't write them down anywhere. (Note to self: Goal #1 for 2013: Write down my goals.) So I'm gonna have to go on memory here: 

1. Plant something from seed and make it grow and thrive long enough to become dinner. I'm starting with this one as a kind of positive reinforcement. This was probably my clearest success of the year. I planted okra from seed and had many, many dinners from the resulting plants. Success!
2. Have something edible ready to pick in the garden year round. Technically, I achieved this goal, but I have to admit that is was a shallow victory. I have a couple of rosemary plants in the front yard that came with the house. They are always in season and I can use them to spice my food. But come on--they came with the house. Does that really count? 
3. Espalier apple trees. Hmm. This is another partial victory, at best. I bought some apple trees and planted them, but haven't done much with them since. Espalier really involves training trees into specific shapes, but the apple trees didn't grow enough to warrant any training. They're still alive though, so I guess I'll take what I can get. 

So what I've learned from looking back at 2012 is that I was a little overly ambitious (and I have a lousy memory).  I'm still a beginning gardener in a pretty hard-to-grow environment. Keeping that in mind, I think I'll try to set some more realistic goals this year: 

1. Write it down! As mentioned above, I did a pretty poor job writing down my 2012 goals. That's an easy thing to fix in 2013. What I didn't mention above is that I also did a really poor job of writing down which varieties of plants I put in. For instance, I have two grape vines that I put in last year, and for the life of me, I don't know what varieties they are. Now I'm looking at pruning them, but the rules for pruning seem to be different for different varieties. Doh!  
2. Get more fruit into the mix. I'm really stacking the deck with this one, because I just bought a dwarf peach tree and blackberry bush for the backyard. All I have to do is plant what I already bought and I've met my goal. But if I can make these work along with my existing pomegranate, grapes, and apple trees, I will be one happy camper. 
3. Produce two really good crops per season. So far, I've really had only one star per season. Last summer, it was okra. The winter before, it was spinach. The summer before was zucchini. Yes, I've produced other edible stuff in the garden, but it was a tomato here or a pomegranate there. I'm talking something that really produces throughout the season. I'm off to a good start with my broccoli, onion, and garlic this season. They all look like they have the potential to be stars, so fingers crossed!
4. Sneak some more edibles into the front yard landscaping. This might be the hardest goal on the list. Word on the street is that my HOA is pretty strict about the rules for front yard landscaping. That probably means that anything I put in the front yard will have to look "pretty," not edible. The obvious choice would be fruit trees (I'm sure an orange tree or lemon tree would be within HOA guidelines), but I can't stand the thought of pulling out one of my existing trees to make room for a new one. So it's going to have to be something else. I'm guessing more herb bushes, but we'll see. But I'd really like to make this work. It feels like the front yard is just going to waste with a bunch of plants that don't, you know, do something. 

So there you go. 2012 in review and 2013 on the horizon. How about you? How'd you do this year? What's on deck for next year? 

Keeping Away Pests

I had great plans this season for having the most productive vegetable garden in all of Arizona. I was going to grow everything from seed, produce a ton of vegetables, and cook yummy, healthy meals from my own backyard every night. Can anyone guess how that went? Anyone? Anyone? 

First, I enlisted the hubby and transformed my garden space. We removed old beds, tilled the soil, put in new beds, mixed the soil with compost... it goes on and on and on. When we were done, I had four beautiful garden beds ready for seeds! And boy did I ever do it up! I planted broccoli, spinach, lettuce, artichokes, cabbage, carrots, peas, garlic, onions, and even some flowers. 

Well, soon after I did all this, some neighborhood cat decided that my boxes were the biggest, most luxurious cat boxes he had ever seen. Like a spa retreat for cats. Grrr. So I cleaned up the beds, planted some new seeds, and sprayed some of Dave the Garden Guy's organic cat-away solution around my garden beds so the cat wouldn't disturb this round of seeds. 

Apparently, the neighborhood cat likes cayenne pepper, because the solution did nothing to deter him. So I cleaned up the beds again, planted seeds again, and rigged up some kitty barriers. I hammered a few nails around of the wood beds (with help from the munchkin) and kept wrapping twine from nail to nail until the whole thing was covered like a big spider web. Actually, it looked pretty cool. 

I think that took care of the cat (thank goodness), and some of the seeds were able to start growing unmolested. But I started noticing some of the seedlings getting eaten. In particular, some critter out there really liked the broccoli plants. (I don't blame them.) 

I figured I had a bird problem, so I went to Lowes and plunked down a few bucks for some bird netting to go over the plants. And this time, I picked up some plant starts as well. I didn't have time to start from seeds again, so I gave myself a head start. Can you guess where this is going? 

Turns out it wasn't birds eating the plants. It was some sort of bug. I'm guessing crickets. Whatever it was, it wasn't deterred one bit by my quaint little bird netting, of course. The holes in that netting are far bigger than any bug coming into the garden. Easy access! 

So I found this excellent article on using garden covers to keep out pests. Based on a tip I saw in there, I bought some tulle (that's the netted fabric that they make bridal veils out of) and put that over the beds. (This fabric is super cheap AND Joann's fabrics has tons of coupons online. If this works, it might end up being the least expensive option yet.) I've just planted another round of seedlings under the netting. Oh God, I hope this works. 

I should mention that I did also try some companion planting to help deal with pests as well. In particular, I have a lot of garlic and onions planted throughout the raised beds. What I found is that yes, the pests have kept away from the garlic and onions, but they are happy enough to eat whatever plant is right next to it. So I'll keep my fingers crossed that the tulle thing works. I know it's not a solution for everything. Some plants need to be pollinated by bees and whatnot, and netting would prevent that, but I'm hoping I'm OK for at least this season. I don't think I'm ready to plant another round of plants! 

Reader Feedback

Hi folks,

I've received a couple of comments lately that I wanted to respond to. For some reason, they show up in my email, but not in the comments sections of the blog. Hmm. I'm not sure what that's about. Anyway, I've been trying to find a way to respond, and the best way I could think of is to just write a blog post.

Anonymous #1: 

I absolutely love your blog and find a lot of your post's to be precisely what I'm looking for. Would you offer guest writers to write content for yourself? I wouldn't mind composing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write regarding here. Again, awesome blog! 

Thank you! I'm so glad it helps. Yes, elaborate away! Feel free to add your thoughts to the comments sections if you think they'll help folks. If you want to write a guest post, just send the text to me at claudette.hobbart@gmail.com. I love that more people are getting interested in gardening, and anything we can do to help each other is great in my book!

Anonymous #2: 

你好，博主。能不能帮我看看我这个的站，差不多俩年了，百度收录才几个页面，这是怎么回事呢？？

Wow. I have no idea what that says. (I don't even know what language it's in. Japanese? Chinese? Korean?) I'm hoping it has to do with gardening, and I didn't just repost some spam or offensive comments. Anyway, if someone knows what this says and wants to translate for me, I'd be much obliged. I admit that I'm intrigued.

Thanks again for the comments. I'll have more posts coming soon. I've got some thoughts about growing garlic and protecting your gardens from critters that I've been meaning to write up.

Cheers,
Claudette

Update:

I looked up this issue where people are commenting, but the comments aren't showing up in the blog. I suspect it was because I was allowing anonymous posts, but I'm not sure. I've changed my blog settings to require some sort of login to post comments. (The login can be to just about any type of account--Google, Yahoo, Facebook, etc.) See this topic on OpenID if you want more details. I'm hoping this means that Blogger will post all your comments, which means that I can respond to them in the comments section. Fingers crossed!

Garden Transformation

Well, my staycation is over and I think I have some good progress to show for it. (I definitely have some sore muscles to show for it. Let me tell ya, a desk job does not prepare you for heavy-duty gardening!) What I really wanted to do during the vacation was spend some time with the kiddo (mission accomplished, we had a great time!) and do some renovation work on the garden. 

This was no run-of-the-mill garden work. I didn't just want to pull out the summer plants and put in the fall plants. No, I wanted to make some changes. Specifically, I wanted to till the soil beneath the raised beds to promote better root growth and cram the beds closer together to make room for more vegis. 

I still haven't finished all of that, but I've done most of it. I have some seed potatoes on order and should receive them next week. I'm hoping to get the last raised bed built and in place before then. Once the potatoes are planted, I can call this baby complete. Still, I did enough that I wanted to show it off. 

Here's the step-by-step on the garden transformation. 

Step 1: Take one last look at the happy summer garden. So peaceful.  

Step 2:  Say bye-bye to the okra, corn, and raised beds. Bye bye!  

Step 3: Till the soil beneath the raised beds to promote better root growth. Thank your husband profusely for dealing with the heavy machinery required to make this happen. 

Step 4: Plop the raised beds back into the space, adding a mix of the native soil, the store bought dirt, and compost to the beds. (To the left is the space that's waiting for bed number 3 this weekend.) 

Step 5: Plant the fall garden!

This is the first year that I'm planting the whole garden from seed. No nursery starts! Seeing how all that works out should definitely make for some good blog posts down the line.

Update:

The last bed is in! If I do say so myself, this is starting to look pretty good!

I've Found My People

So I'm not sure if you can tell, but I'm kind of obsessed with vegetable gardening. (Shocking revelation, huh?) The obsession is relatively new, so it's not like my friends and loved ones knew what they were signing up for when they became my friends and loved ones. Still, they are being very patient with me, despite the fact that it's probably wearing pretty thin. You gotta wonder how many backyard gardening photos you can post on Facebook before your friends start being "busy" when you call. ("Another picture of a plant. Wow, Claudette. Fascinating.")

So I've found some people who appear to be as obsessed as me. They are the Tucson Backyard Gardening Facebook group, and they are awesome. They answer questions that people have about their gardens. They compare stories. They tell geeky garden jokes. They are just the people I was looking for.

A couple of days ago, I posted a picture of a tree that caught my fancy in a local nursery, and it sparked a whole conversation in the forum. I think it topped out at about a dozen comments. About a tree. I'm in love.

If you're looking for like-minded people so that you can give your poor forlorn loved ones a break from your incesant gardening talk, may I recommend the Tucson Backyard Gardening Facebook group? Your friends and family will thank you.

Well, Not Every Experiment is Going to Work

Just in case you were under the impression that I knew what I was doing, I thought I'd tell you about my little adventures in growing corn this year. I'm pretty sure I made a rooky mistake. I've been thinking for a while that the corn would be ready "any time now." Finally, I pulled back the husk of one of the ears of corn today. Here's what greeted me:

Ug. That's 3 little kernels surrounded by a whole lot of nuthin. A quick look on the Internet immediately revealed my problem: lack of pollination. Another look at the Internet revealed why they didn't pollinate: I didn't plant enough. (Not by a long shot.) Apparently I should have planted 36 plants at once. 36! This is my scrawny little corn patch:

Yes, if it takes 36 plants to get some good pollination going, I can see why this didn't work. Ah well. (Also, you may notice a few bean plants at the bottom of those corn husks. I planted those waaaaaaaay too late, so those are bust too.)

This vegetable gardening thing is all an experiment for me, which means there are bound to be some lows along with the highs. Ah well, better luck next year. In the meantime, I guess I'll start looking for ways to preserve corn, since 36 plants next year is going to produce an awful lot corn.

Location, Location, Location

Emboldened by the anonymous comments of a couple of readers, I've decided to inudate the site with even more rambling information about fall gardening in Arizona. (Emboldened, inudate: How's that for some 25 cent words?) Today's ramblings: How to pick where to plant your vegis.

As best as I can tell (remember, I'm still new to this too!), there are three things you need to worry about when figuring out where to plant your vegis:

1. What was planted in that spot before? From what I've read, if you plant the same plant (or the plants from the same family) in the same spot too many years in a row, you increase the chance of disease. (Since I'm pretty new to all of this, I don't have to worry about that too much.) There's also the issue of putting a "heavy feeder" (something that saps the nutrients from the soil) in the same spot where another heavy feeder was just planted. For instance, I'm told that planting an artichoke in the same spot where you just pulled out some corn is a big no-no, because there just won't be enough nutrients left in the soil for the artichoke. (I have to wonder if adding a bunch of compost or something to the soil will help you get around this particular requirement.)
2. How much sun does the spot get? Can you believe it? We actually have to worry about getting enough sun in Arizona? Surprises me too, but it's really something you have to worry about--particularly in the non-summer months. For instance, I planted some peas against the west wall of my house recently, and they were a total bust. They slowly turned from green, to yellow, to white--probably because they were getting too much afternoon shade from the house. I still think that spot is a keeper for the summer months when you have to worry about your vegis getting prematurely cooked in the heat, but for the fall, I think I'll let that spot rest.
3. What plants are going to be planted around it? This is the most complicated part. For those who want to do more reading, google "companion planting" for your plant of choice. Basically, some plants make good neighbors. Beans and corn are a classic example of this. The beans add nitrogen to the soil, and the corn takes the nitrogen from the soil. The beans need something to grow up, and the corn makes a perfect support. It's a great symbotic relationship. (There I go with the 25 cent words again.) On the flip side, there are other plants that absolutely should not be planted together, either because they compete for the same nutrients, or because they adversely affect each other's flavors, or because one plant attracts pests that are problematic to the other. Lucky for me, most of the plants I wanted to put in this fall seem to work well together, but I did have to separate the peas and garlic in my plans because apparently they don't play nice together.

When it comes to companion planting, I find that I have to make myself a spreadsheet to keep track of it all. Here's the one I cooked up when I was doing my fall planning this year. I'm not sure that the list of dos and don'ts are complete, because I really only wrote down the plants I was interested in planting this year, but hopefully it will at least be a good start for some of you.

So there you go. That's pretty much everything I can think of when it comes to picking a location for your vegis. Happy planting!

P.S. Thank you to the anonymous readers who have sent me emails about the site and encouraged me to post more. It really and truly makes my day to get your comments.

Planning the Fall Garden

Not that I'm counting or anything, but my staycation from work starts in 11.5 days. That means that 12 days from now, I will be happily digging away in my garden. (13 or 14 days from now, I might be getting a pedicure. We'll see how it goes.) I've been reading, spreadsheeting, and planning like crazy in anticipation, and I've got a fall plan:

You'll probably notice I've got a LOT of stuff crammed into that box on the right (3 brocolli plants, 4 celery, 27 garlic, 54 onions, 72 carrots, 2 cabbages, and 12 spinach). It's inspired by square foot gardening, which seems awfully optimistic, but I'm feeling optimistic. Let's give it a shot. 

A bunch of the stuff I have on the plan (peas, artichokes, brocolli, carrots) are things I tried last year and couldn't make work. I'm hoping that getting them off to an earlier start this year will make things go better. (Last year, I started the artichokes and carrot in late November, the broccoli in late December, and peas in late January.) So maybe a little sun before the cold sets in will do them some good.

Hey, I couldn't do much worse than last year, right? 

From Seed to Supper: Growing Okra in Arizona

One of my favorite Arizona gardeners posted some lovely pics of okra on Facebook this week, and they seemed to generate a lot of interest and questions from her followers. It seemed like as good an excuse as any to chronicle my own okra saga, just in case it helps anyone. (Also, I have a lousy memory. If nothing else, I'll have this on hand for next year when it comes time to plant okra.) So here's my process for going from seed to supper with okra in Arizona.

Sprouting...
Some time back in March, I ordered okra seeds from my favorite seed company. Soon after, I eagerly started the seeds inside under grow lights. I found it pretty easy to start the seedlings. I used some organic Miracle Grow potting mix and followed the instructions on the packet. However, I'm wondering if the whole grow lights thing is necessary. I probably did it so I could get a jump start on the season, but I suspect that was a false start. As best as I can tell, okra doesn't really produce a lot until late August or so, regardless of when you get it started. It might be easier to just plant the seeds directly outside, even if it means they get off to a slower start. (Also, if I recall correctly, Summerwinds Nursery had okra seedlings this year, so if starting from seeds seems too hard core, there are other options.)

Okra seedlings. So deceptively small.

Planting...
Sometime around April, it came time to plant the seedlings outside. I probably should have "hardened them off," but I suspect I just stuck 'em in the ground one morning and hoped for the best. I planted mine on the north side of my yard in a 4'x6'x1' raised bed where it would get full sun. Arizona gardeners, this is one of the many charms of okra! Not only can it take full sun during the furnace blast we call summer, it actually likes it! (Crazy, crazy plant!)

Waiting...
This was the hard part for me. Once I planted my little seedlings, then I just watered and waited. Every few weeks I gave it fish emulsion too, but mostly, I just watered and waited. (For watering schedule, I think I started at every other day or so, and kicked it up to every day during the height of summer. Next year, I'm going to try to encourage deeper roots and mulch with hay or something to see if I can get away with watering less.) During this waiting period, I think a few died, so I'm going to take that as a lesson for next year too--plant more than I'll need, because they probably won't all survive.

Okra seedlings do not inspire greatness in the beginning

Harvesting...
Somewhere around August, the okra finally started kicking into gear. By this time, I had 5 plants, and between them, I was probably producing an average of 3-4 pods a day. I've read online that pods are only good for a couple of days, but I would save up my daily haul in a Tupperware container all week and use it to cook something on the weekend. It seemed plenty fresh, so I think that 2 day limit is a little aggressive.

Probably the big things that I learned about harvesting okra are:

• You've got to hunt for them. The plants are like bushy little trees, and it's easy for okra pods to hide (particularly on the lower branches). If one of those pods slips past your attention for too long (like a day), you're kind of hosed because...
• You've got to pick them at just the right time. If you let them get too big (over 3-4 inches), they turn into the consistency of tree bark. This transformation from tiny & tender to big & barky can literally happen overnight, so you have to be on your toes!

Right now, we're in late September, and the okra is still going strong.

The ugly duckling turns into a swan

Eating!
I probably get about one really nice meal a week for my husband and I out of our 5 okra plants. Our absolute favorite is bhindi masala, but we've also really enjoyed some gumbo. (The nice thing about the gumbo is that it makes way more than we can eat in one meal, so we have a nice store of easy to reheat leftovers in the freezer when we make a batch.) I tried pickled okra too, but it kind of tasted like mushy cucumber pickles. I think I'll pass on doing those again.

Bhindi Masala. Oh baby.

Composting

Pretty soon here, the okra will probably be done for the season. (Even if it isn't, I plan to pull it up in mid-October when I have some time off from work to garden.) I'll tear them out, compost them, and put something else in their place. So all told, I will have probably gotten about 2 months of good production out of them this season. Not bad!

There you go: Seed to supper. In future years, I might be able to give you a seed to seed saga (where I save the seeds from one year to use the next), but I'm not there yet. Baby steps.

Arizona Seed Source

I just bought seeds again from Westwind Seeds in Tucson, and I almost feel like I have to write about these guys. I don't work for them. I've never met them. But I'm pretty sure they are totally awesome people, so I'm going to mention them here, just in case it helps any other Arizona gardeners.

First, these guys do the whole no GMO, open pollinated seed thing. So right off the bat, they're getting some serious hippy points. (If you're not a hippy-dippy type, but you do like gardening, read on. It gets better.)

Even better, they specialize in plants that will do well in "extreme climates." What a nice way to say "surface of the sun" (e.g., the backyard of every Arizonian I know). Another selling point is that (at least in my experience), they always, always, always include a nice hand-written note with your order. Nice touch!

But the kicker here, folks, is that they always seem to include free seeds in their orders too. This little perk is not advertised on their website, but in the four or five times I've ordered from them, they have always included some free seeds in the order. Check out the sticker on the lower-right and upper-left seed packets here:

I'm not really clear why they do this. They don't advertise this perk. They don't send a hand-written note saying why they choose to do it. You just get these free seeds. My best guess is that they're trying out new varieties or something. Darned if I know, but it makes me feel good every time.

So there you go. I didn't get paid for this. I don't know anyone at this company, but if you live in an "extreme climate," I totally recommend buying your seeds from Westwind Seeds. These guys are awesome.

My name is Claudette and I approved this message.

Staycation!

Not that I'm counting or anything, but 26 days from today, my one week staycation from work starts. The kid will be at camp (her school has a 2.5 week break in October), the weather should be beautiful (Arizona primetime, Baby!), and my "To Do" list for the garden is growing by the second. It should be awesome! So what are my grand plans?

• Pull out the okra. (It's should be winding down by that point.) 
• Possibly pull out the sweet potatoes. (I really have no idea when they'll be done. We'll see how that goes.) 
• Move my raised beds closer together in an attempt to squeeze another one in. (The alternative is to actually rip up lawn and put more raised beds there. It's tempting, but sometimes you've got to know your limits. That's probably more than I'll be able to take on.) 
• Build another raised bed. 
• Plant winter vegis (brocolli, onions, garlic, carrots, spinach). 
• Maybe rig up some hoops on the raised beds so they're ready to go when the cold weather hits. (Cold weather is, of course, a relative term. Cold for Arizona.) 
• Stake out my apple trees to get some good espalier action going. 

I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself. Have I mentioned that there's only 26 days to go? :) 

The Garden Speaks: "Stop Your Damn Whining"

For a little while here, I've been writing posts about starting my fall garden. The more discerning among you may have noticed just a hint of whining. (OK, more than a hint.) Although the main message has been about how I want to be proactive about getting the fall garden started, the undercurrent has been "I'm soooooo done with summer."

I think the garden got tired of my damn complaining, because it's started talking back to me. (OK, that's an overstatement. I can't hear the plants actually speaking. No need to call a shrink.) Let's rephrase that. It's demonstrating to me that summer in Arizona actually has something to offer.

When I went to water the sweet potatoes this morning, I was greeted by this beauty. It was quite a surprise. The sweet potatoes have been going gangbusters now for quite a while, but there's never been any hint of flowers. I'm hoping that this is the first of many:

And my plant-it-and-leave-it sunflower is like a postcard. I planted a few seeds in a pot a while back and put it where it would get water from the lawn sprinklers. That's it. I've literally done nothing for it since, and I got this in return:

And that's just the new flowers. The okra flowers have been coming fast and furious for weeks and weeks now. Check out these exotic beauties:

And the heat loving melons have a way of showing off too:

OK, garden. I get it. I get it. Summer in Arizona ain't all bad. I'm still looking forward to fall, but I'll try to be less whiny about it. Just don't actually start talking to me, OK?

Multitasking Meltdown

Less than a week ago, I posted my grand plans here for how to multitask in the garden. I was going to keep the summer garden firing on all cylinders while simultaneously getting things kick-started on the fall garden. I was totally going to nail this short-season Arizona gardening thing.

Well, I'm guessing you can tell from the title of this post how that is going.

I can't help but be reminded of one of my daughter's picture books. It's called Crafty Chloe and it's fabulous. (Do-it-yourself types will just love reading it to their kids.) There's one picture in there (that is only marginally related to the plot) that really hits home for me. Chloe's mom is trying to multitask, and as a result, ends up  sticking a thermometer in the poor kid's eye:

That's a pretty good metaphor for my attempts at multitasking in the garden. Trying to do more things than are really possible (if I'm going to be really honest with myself) is leading to some unfortunate results. The summer garden is still going strong, but check out some of these seedlings that I'm trying to jump start indoors. The spinach is so desperately trying to stretch up to the grow light that it's turned into some sort of elasti-spinach mutant:

The broccoli ain't doing much better:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that planting those spindly little things isn't going to give me much of a jump start on anything. It would probably be a matter of hours (not days) before those little things flopped over and died, putting me right back at square one.

So now I'm looking for a plan B that somehow lets me get the fall garden started while the summer garden is still in. There are a lot of reasons to try to make this happen. Officially, I'll say it's because getting a jump start on the fall garden means I'll get more yields from the plants.

But the real reason I need to find a way to get a new round of vegis started? Because it helps me fool myself into thinking that autumn is just around the corner. The alternative is admitting that this Arizona summer is still in full swing and will be for a while. And I really don't think I can do that.

Oh Baby!

This is looking promising. Corn silks are developing on the stalks. I'm already thinking of recipes!

Multitasking Madness

One of the quirks of Arizona gardening is short seasons (except for summer, which feels like FOREVER). Every Arizona garden book I've read talks about getting short season varieties of seeds and generally finding ways to make more time out of less so that your plants will have enough time to develop and produce. So along those lines, I've been thinking that it's time to get a jump start on my fall garden, even though it's still about a million degrees outside.

Here's the problem though: Just about all my garden space is already taken up with summer vegis in full production. My okra and melons, in particular, are just now really getting into full swing. So my best shot at keeping the summer and fall gardens going at the same time is indoor starts:

That's a bunch of plastic cups under inside grow lights. (From top left to bottom right I've got spinach, brocolli, green beans, and peas.) I figure I can keep 'em inside that way for at least a few weeks. (It should also keep the birds from eating up all my little seedlings.) Maybe by then, some of my summer plants will be ready to come out. That, or I'm going to have to find some really big pots for the patio!

What's Going On In My Summer Garden

This year's summer garden went sooooooo much better than last year's. The key (among other things) appears to be to plant what works well here, not what used to work well in California. (The books told me that some of those California vegis could make it here. My garden seemed to disagree.) Now that I'm on track with more heat-loving plants, I've got some nice success stories. 

The melons are going crazy. Yum! I already picked one earlier this week, I've got two more big ones waiting in the wings, and lots of teeny tiny ones getting ready to take off. 

I've got two grape plants. I'm relieved to say that they seem to be not only surviving through the Arizona summer, but actually growing. I'd say that they were thriving, but something's eating the grape leaves, so "thriving" might be pushing it. Still, despite being some critter's lunch, they still seem to be happy. 

This is my 4' x 6' raised bed with sweet potatoes. My mom jokes that the vines will reach inside the house any day now. I suspect the whole harvest will come at once later this fall. Good thing sweet potatoes store well! Looks like we'll have a lot of them.

One of my lovely okra plants. They really are beautiful when they're thriving and in bloom.

Today's okra haul. Not bad! Gumbo tonight? 

Teeny tiny pomegranates have started growing on my pomegranate bush. According to my internet sources, I should expect it to take 6 months for this baby to reach full size. Although I've also heard that when a pomegranate plant is young (under 5 years old), the fruits will fall off before reaching maturity. (La! La! La! I can't hear you internet sources who tell me such things!)

Based on a tip from the Arizona Victory Garden, I dug in for the corn this year (instead of creating a raised bed). It's doing well so far! This is one of the sunniest spots in the garden. Previously, I had an itty bitty raised bed here (2.5 'x 2.5'). I think the combination of lots of sun and little soil to insulate it just cooked pretty much all the plants that I put in this spot before. A sunken bed seems to do a better job of protecting the plants from the heat now.

It's hard to see in the pic, but those are itty bitty green bean shoots underneath the corn. (I tried pumpkins too--three sisters style--but the Arizona weather got the best of them.) 

Those are this summer's beauties. Others didn't do so well. I tried tomatoes (a heart breaker) and only got a few before they got totally cooked by 100+ weather. But I'm not ready to give up on them yet. They're just too yummy. I've got schemes for how to do better next year. Surprisingly, the zucchini never took off this year either. Basil did well enough for a while to get me a few good batches of pesto to store in the freezer, but the plants didn't survive the Arizona summer long. My green pepper plants never did much either. Still, I'm so much happier with this summer's vegis than last summers. And I can hardly wait for fall! Arizona is a wonderful place to garden during the fall!