Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Go Big or Go Home

I’m so excited, I barely know what to do with myself. The hubby and I have been talking, and we’ve decided to expand the garden A LOT. We’re tearing out lawn. We’re getting sprinklers rerouted. We’re tilling and amending soil. We’re installing formal drip irrigation just for the vegetable garden. In other words, we’re going Big Time, people!

What led up to this big (probably expensive) decision?

Reason #1

When we recently installed our DIY irrigation, gardening got a whole lot easier. For instance, we went on vacation without worrying about watering. In fact, I barely worry about watering at all anymore. And since I’m barely occupied with taking care of the daily needs of the plants, I have a lot more mind space to devote to planning and scheming. All of a sudden, I don’t have the physical space to accommodate all the schemes bouncing around in my head. Need proof? I give you exhibit A:



Tip toe. Tip toe. I can barely walk between my garden beds anymore

Exhibit B. I'm not even sure I know what's in this bed anymore:


Watermelon, sweet potatoes, green beans, okra... oh, I give up!

Reason #2

Like everyone else in the world, my family and I are trying to eat healthier. (I will not post pictures to illustrate this point. You’re just going to have to trust me that this is a good idea.) We joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) to help with this effort. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept, when you join a CSA, a local farm gives you a bag a fresh “mystery” vegis every week for a set fee.) We thought this would be a great idea—we’d support a local farm, we’d eat a lot more vegis, and we’d be forced out of our comfort zone because they’d give us a lot of stuff that we might not otherwise try. The problem is they gave us a bunch of stuff that wasn’t as fresh as we would have hoped or was bitter because it was out of season. So much for that idea. We’ve never really been able to get ourselves to go to the Farmers Market on a regular basis (it’s a 30 minute drive for us), so it seems the only way to regularly get fresh, local vegis on a regular basis is to grow them ourselves.

Reason #3

Gardening makes me happy. This is probably the most important reason of all, people. I mean, as far as reason #2 goes, there are other ways to eat healthy without growing vegis in your own yard. But they wouldn’t make me happy the same way that growing them myself does. It amazes me that a teeny tiny little seed can grown into a sprawling plant that wraps eight feet in each direction and produces food day after day to eat. I feel like a freaking rock star when I can take that same plant and throw it in a composter to use for nutrients to help the next amazing plant grow. Even when things don’t work exactly as planned, I still love it. Here’s the one and only pumpkin that has produced from my pumpkin vine. I really would have hoped for more, but look at that beauty!



Ain’t she gorgeous?

So there you go: three good reasons to spend a lot of money to redo my yard, yet again. I could come up with more reasons, but I think that’s enough. Don’t you? I imagine we’ll do the work in late September/early October—roughly one year after the last major revamp of the garden. Stay tuned for updates.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Melonpalooza

Summer in Arizona is a lot like winter in other parts of the country. We stay inside a lot because of the extreme weather. We get cabin fever. We desperately wait for it to be over. But one thing that's different for us gardeners is that we can still garden, even when the weather is awful. In fact, if we pick the right plants, they'll go absolutely nuts, even though the weather seems like it shouldn't support any life at all.

Like melons. Oh my. They'll go crazy in the summer. I've got two melon plants growing right now, and they're threatening to take over the entire neighborhood. And I'm not doing a whole lot to help them along either. I put the soaker hoses in a while back and put the hoses on a timer. Days go by where I don't even go outside. I haven't fertilized them in weeks. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if I've ever fertilized them. But the crazy little buggers are going absolutely crazy.

This is one honeydew plant. One. It reaches from one end of the six foot bed, well past the other end and is starting to grow over the lawn. It's climbing up the concrete fence on the left side of the picture. And the craziest part? I didn't even plant it. I think it sprouted up from a seed in my compost left over from last year.


Here's one of the melons growing right now. I'm not exactly sure how many I have right now. I counted about five the other day, but they're hard to spot under all those leaves.


Here's a watermelon plant I planted from seed a couple of months ago. Now I'm afraid I'll have to pay rent to the neighbors because it's getting so big. Again, we're talking one plant here. Again, it is spreading well past the six foot raised bed in multiple directions.


This poor young bougainvillea clearly needs to fear for its precious young life. The watermelon plant will show no mercy.


Here's one of the melons from the plant. I'm not sure how many others there are. I haven't had the courage to pick through the jungle of vines to find the rest.


So if you want to feel like a super awesome rock star gardener in the summer without having to, you know, work or go outside or anything, I definitely recommend melons. They are a great way to boost your gardener self esteem!