Welcome Arizona SFGers!

Caren

Glad to have you here.

Have you had a chance to read ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING by Mel Bartholomew yet? It is great reading and provides simple instructions for following the SFG Method to build boxes, fill them with Mel's Mix and spacing for your veggies. It also give great information on starting your own transplants and providing protection from insects and aniumals.

Please keep us posted on your progress, ask questions and post photos if you can.

Again, Welcome!

Welcome Caren!

It's great to have another "west sider" One here! Let me know if you need any thing or have any questions and I'll be happy to help as much as I can. I'm still learning too, but so far so good! You could still get in squash and pumpkins now if you wanted to start something, otherwise you can start prepping for fall planting in Sept/oct.

I like to check craigslist for cheap box building materials. Since you have some time, you might be able to find stuff for free or cheap.

Good luck!

I am in Benson, moved here 2 years ago from Minnesota (although I am a native California girl). We moved into our house this past April, and have been too busy getting things fixed up to do any real gardening. I have a potted tomato and 2 potted squash plants. I am really excited to get my boxes ready for fall planting.

After ready some of the posts, I have decided to go with 8" deep boxes instead of 6". I hope to keep some of the heat damage away from the plants next summer. I also plan to use shade cloth covers when the heat gets over 95 degrees. Does that sound about right?

Anyway, glad to be on the forum and look forward to southwest desert advice.

Cathy B

cbrose

Glad to have you join us. Unfortunately, my climate is sooooooooo different from yours, I will not have much growing advice for you, but did want to welcome you to the forum.

I do know that some SW desert gardeners use deeper boxes and shadecloth, so that sounds like a good plan.
Have you read ALL NEW SQUARE FOOT GARDENING yet? Another good read available on this forum is
HOW STRONG IS YOUR BACKBONE and will give you great information on composts and how to create great Mel's Mix.

Again, Welcome and hope you will keep us updated on your fall gardening.

Welcome cbrose.

It doesn't hurt to go 8" deep and shade cloth is a good idea. Benson is not as intense as Phoenix in the summer so you should have an easier time with growing during the summer months. Good luck on your gardening.

Hello all!

I am a brand new square foot gardener. I am very excited about beginning this adventure. This will be my first time doing something like this, so I am looking for a great deal of support and help from this group!

We are putting in a 8 foot wide by 2 foot deep planter, and are looking to grow herbs and plants. Any suggestions on good plants to start with -- so I'll feel competent but still have to pay attention to it?

Looking forward to hearing and talking with everybody!

Stuart

stuartinaz,
Right now, it's time for basil, squash, melons, corn, beans.... Hope that helps! Good luck in your garden adventures!

Howdy All in AZ,
I just started in January with my Gardens. I am experimenting with different types to see what works best for me down here in Yuma. I have four 2' x 4' elevated beds and a 3' x 6' elevated bed plus some old horse feeders that I made into planters and am doing three sisters in there. I have used thule or whatever its called as insect netting and now as a shader for my smaller beds. I planted a lot of what normal gardeners do for a spring garden then found out that most of it dosen't get planted until Sept. down here. Am trying to grow some sweet potato slips right now, they seem to take forever to get beyond the sprout stage. If these don't do anything in the next week or so I am going to have to order some slips from far away. Am planning on using Native Seeds/Search out of Tuscon for my main gardens in the future because their products are adapted to the desert. It has been triple digit weather here since mid March. Where I live, the temps are higher then what the weather services say for the cities around me by about ten or so degrees. I have to laugh when I see what they say and its hotter in the shade. Some of my toms are turning color now so it wont be long before we have a mess of them. One of the toms is a direct sow. My spinach is still going strong and carrots are still hanging in there. I squash up the kazoo, most of it is planted in a 40' x 4' x 42" compost station divided into 10 sections. I recently removed the outside pallets for use in another project so imagine 10 giant soil cubes and that is what I have, just lacking the grids to make it an official SFG
For strawberries, the roots that I bought just wouldn't try so I put in a transplant from a box store and just have the one plant. Marigolds are another failure for me, they just wouldn't germ. I got one picking off the snow peas before they gave up the ghost. Snap peas are blossoming but looking sad. Forget Irish potatoes this time of year, my last one of fifteen just went belly up.
I thought fifty square feet would be to much for a beginner and was I wrong. I could have used about five times as much growing space. I have twenty tire gardens scattered around to compensate, just planted melons and cucs in some to see if I can push the envelope a little. According to UoA there are only about three things to plant in May, sweet potatoes, okra, and peanuts. Of course my growing seasons are 180 out from the rest of the country. Another mistake I made is that I didn't check with the extension agent before I planted in Feb. So to all newbies if you haven't done so get a planting guide from your county extension agent and save yourself some grief. When I first found out that most of what I put in was wrong I was very upset to say the least, most

(dangedburn machines, mine just reset and I got cut off) of my enthusiasm went out the window. There were a few other things too. When I put my mix together, I didn't use manures as part of the compost portion because to my itty bitty pea brain manure equaled fertilizer and I wasn't having any in my mix because it was supposed to be compost only. So another lesson learned. You all have fun and enjoy our toasty weather. When there are clouds in the sky, we call that a weather change. Been down here 30+ years.
Don, thanks for starting this group here. We can learn from each what is good and what isn't for our climates. Have sent folks your way in the past when I found that they were in your area. Gave them your web site. Nice to see you here too.
Anybody tried sunken mulch beds yet for SFG? Only ref I could find was a you tube vid and it wasn't SFG, but the principle should work for us. My only problem would be drainage as I have really heavy compacted clay for ground and it takes forever and a day for water to perk down. Maybe for you folks with sandy ground this might work for you. CUL,

I will reach out to you here in the near future as there may be a trip to Scottsdale in November in my future - anyone here in the Scottsdale, Cave Creek - up that a way or in the Phoenix area?

Stay positive Gunny.  Happy mistakes will happen, not just bad ones. I've had marigolds growing literally like weeds around the yard without any love.

Haven't tried sunken beds because of the drainage issue you raised (pun intended). 

There are some good planting guides put out by the Univ of Arizona if you do searches.