2011 garden Glendale, AZ (duhh) planted 2-13-2011

I also started my fall garden last weekend based on the Low Desert Planting calendar. So far I planted Broc, leaf lettuce, bok choy, spinach and carrots. The bok choy sprounted first followed by broc, spinach, lettuce and the carrots finally sprouted this morning. Love the cool mornings and evenings and it should get better from here out.

I must say ... great job! On both the garden AND the thread! I've really enjoyed reading it from the beginning and seeing all the success you've had~! I'm totally impressed and can't wait until I can finally garden the SFG way!

Reading threads like this are TOTALLY inspiring for me!

Hey other Az gardeners, I'd love to see what your gardens are doing right now.

wncsohn: Thanks. I'm glad you like the thread, sometimes I wonder why I bother, but now I'm glad I have! Be sure to let us know about your garden when you are able to get it going!

AWESOME love to see other AZ gardens. The pictures are inspiring THANKS for the input.

Fellow Arizonian !!!

Great garden. My entire SFG space in N. Phoenix is just 3'x25' right now, set up just like the area you are calling your back garden bed. Mine is along the East side of my property along the block wall.

Your pictures are encouraging me to expand a bit more, even though the space I have is plenty for 2 adults as long as I manage it efficiently. I would like to have some extra veggies to share with neighbors and friends and be able to do some canning.

Thanks for the inspiration.

TomArgiro: Your garden sounds exactly like my back bed area. Although mine is on a SW? wall. I think The sun sets back that way, but at an angle. It makes it pretty hot during the summer, but great in the winter for the tomatoes.
We probably have more space than we need, but I would like to be able to can tomatoes and such at some point. Also, I love giving stuff to people. I pretty much keep my work supplied in lettuce and spinach during the winter! This summer it was yellow pear tomatoes and basil.
I hope that you will share your garden pictures and experiences with us! Glad to have another Az gardener chiming in!

It's been over a month now, so I guess it is time for an update!

The weather is finally fall like here. I actually got cold while passing out candy on Halloween! The plants are loving it.

Here is the front view of the garden. One tomato plant is now a year old and has new tomatoes on it. Also, its growing very fast. I have decided to just let it grow without much cutting on it. That way if it frosts hopefully it will jut hurt the outer area and not the whole plant... This is one of the plants that kept getting frost damage lat year and made it. We will see. . . .


sugar snap peas! Every week or so I plant another square or so. My nephew wants lots of peas this year!


Found a white watermelon today. not sure if it will have time to mature. We planted it pretty late and it struggled alot in the Aug/Sept heat


moon and stars watermelon. this was actually taken about a week ago. It's bigger now


Newly strung up tomato plant. I strung it up to the pergola. I hope it has time to do something before the cold.


Trying to protect my lettuce, spinach,pak choy, cilantro. Hope it works!


I don't remember reading about how many of these per square, but it might be to big for one. the annoying thing is, she is on a little volunteer tomato plant!

That's awesome, Duhh.

This guy outgrew his square in my garden but he still leaves his
mark:



Got Vorlon tomato plants that were started in the spring producing tomatoes but am waiting for fruit to set on cherry, black cherry, reisentraub and belarusian tomatoes.

Got my lettuce, sugar snap peas and edamame growing. Eggplants are still kicking out purple beasts. Siam Queen basil remains the tastiest I have ever tasted and I have plenty to share. The trellis behind my wife in the pic below has chinese long red beans growing (though once a bean has grown full size it dries up quick). Loving sauteed swiss chard with sauteed garlic slices, so I've added more swiss chard. The little blue cups seem to be keeping critters from eating my plants.

Here is one watermelon triumphantly held by my wife we were able to salvage before something
wiped out my plants:

Hi Duhh,

In one of the first pictures of your gorgeous garden, I noticed how you gridded your boxes. It looks like plastic clothes line, but I can't figure out what you have wrapped them around.

jkahn2eb: Thanks for sharing some pics. Your garden space is great. nice watermelon too! I don't think any of ours actually got that big. We had a bunch split when it got really hot. We just got our chard going again too! I love chard. I like to chop it up and use it in eggs, spaghetti sauce. Pretty much anyway I would use spinach I use chard.

Luci: Yes it is white plastic clothesline. So far it works great and is cheap enough. Also I just stapled it to the wood of the box. I am having trouble trying to figure out how to attach it to my cinder block beds.

Have you considered using those skinny bamboo stakes that are used to prop up flowers? Depending on where the 1 ft mark is on your concrete blocks, you mighter either stick them in the block itself, or use something like liquid nails to attache them on the outside of the block (not where it would contact your MM. Then you could just wrap them around the stakes.

Wow duhh....those pics are awesome! I sure wish I had more room around my house to put SFG boxes around.

Duhh,

You have a briliant set up .. just seeing the massive range of your crops makes me envious for it's far to cold to grow most of them here in the UK without the use of a greenhouse .



I lived in Cyprus for almost a year close to Nicosia , one of the locals took me under his care .. we played at making up rock bordered beds to around 18 inches deep using various animal manures & chopped up palm leaves , with me scratching out buckets of rich red soil & dust from between rocks to get something to help hold it all together . His other established beds were similar to yours .

I am intrigued ...... Are all your ground beds only as deep as the sides indicate or are they deeper ?

Do you have a water resistant membrane at the bottom of each bed to help stop the water " wicking away " into the ground ?

Seeing as your yard looks like it is all stones do you use a hosepipe for watering things and is your water pH high or low ?

Luci: I might have to try the bamboo idea for my back beds...I need to figure something out for my grid back there.


Plantoid: Thanks for the compliments!! I have been working on our set up here for about 1 1/2 years now, and still a lot to do. We are spoiled here in southern Arizona. The weather is so nice that we can garden something all year round.

I'll try to answer your questions as best as I can

Most of my boxes are only 6in deep. The block beds could be 8 inches deep, but the mix settled and so it is closer to 8. I have one 8ftx4ft bed that is 12inches deep,but only filled to about 6-10 inches deep at most. I think slightly deeper is good here in the heat of the summer, mulching kept in a lot of moisture this summer. I have plans to slowly build up my boxes. I don't think that they have to be deeper, but as I get older I'll appreciate them being a little taller.

the 8x4 bed has only cardboard underneath.. . or should I say had. It is long gone now. The rest all have weed cloth under. Nothing to keep the water in though.

I water my garden by hand right now. With a hose that is set up with filters to take out the chlorine.. During the summer I water once a day or every other day... during the winter it becomes 1 every three days or so. One day, when I have the whole garden in, I do plan on putting out a drip line or something for the watering. I like to hand water because I can check on everything all the time. That way, I am able to catch pests and such in the garden much faster. Even after I have something automated set up, I will more than likely only use it during the summer when it's so hot or while away on vacation.
The water here is very alkaline as is the native soil.

I hope I was able to answer all your questions!

How much of a factor is chlorine?

I think if chlorine levels aren't too high, it's safe to use in your garden. I've been watering veggies and other plants for years straight out of the outside faucet and I never noticed any abnormalities.

If chlorine is a concern to you, you can either let the water sit in a bucket(or buckets) over night and the chlorine will go away, or you can use something like this.....

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/chlorine-filter.html

Chlorine kills anything that is in the soil. Any good bacteria, fungi and such. My hubby has been studying what makes up good soil and has been playing with our mels mix a little trying to create a good microb environment. So putting chlorinated water on the garden would kill them all. Chlorine isn't good for us, so it's not good for your plant or soil. Here in Glendale, AZ our water has high levels of Chlorine. You can smell and taste it in the water. My hubby tested the water here and it had the right amount for a pool! (1.0)

We went and bought a shower filter and attached it to the outside hose @ the bib. Tested the water again and it hadn't eliminated all of it, so we added another. Now the water we are giving our plants and yard has no chlorine in it.

I don't know if you need to go to this extreme in your yards/garden. All I know is since we have done this, our yard and garden have really improved since we have done this.

What have me the idea was Mel talking about putting your water in a barrel for awhile to warm up the water. I thought to myself...this would get rid of the chlorine as well...

duhh, thanks for that info on the chlorine. I'd forgotten how sick it made me when I lived in Seattle, and how much healthier I got when I came to the island. Well water is so much better!
Last night, I read all the posts that mentioned greensand and potassium in the archives, and it occurs to me that some of those whose plants turned yellow and even died may have had water problems rather than mineral deficiencies. I've been extremely lucky in my results in my new garden, and I think the water is a large part of it, as is the fabulous bulk mushroom compost I get at a landscaper's nearby.
Thanks again.
j

Hey all!! duhh in southern Az checking in..

What a difference a month can make! Things are growing pretty well. My year old Yellow pear tomato plant is making a crazy strong come back after it's big hair cut back in August... i think. . anyway it is covered in little tomatoes, and I have left it unpruned for now. I figure I will leave it bushy, My thinking is, maybe it will protect it from getting frosted to much. With cover of course. I did this last year, and it seemed to work. Keeping my fingers crossed this will actually work with the cold front coming in.
Below is a pic of the big old plant...Seriously. that is one plant. Sure there is another plant a few feet away and some jalapeno plants off to the right, but this plant pretty much dominates the space right now


Speaking of the cold weather coming in.. We built the frame for a little green house. It will fit most of the front 4x8 box. Keep your fingers crossed for me! It is just supposed to get down to about 34 this weekend, so I think a little protection will be needed. Here is a pic of the frame. came from a greenhouse kit. Kinda reminds me of a tent.


My wall of peas, not flowering yet, but hopefully soon. To the left in front are brussel sprouts(if the dog or cat hasn't killed them all, kohlrabi, and behind that, some Bell peppers that survived the summer.


Believe it or not, I just picked a whole grocery bag full of Basil for a friend. I will also harvest more tonight to make some pesto. Yum.. Behind are some green zebra toms. I love those guys! Also to the left an impulse buy of an artichoke plant... I fear that I didn't give it enough room.


"What do you mean you don't want me in here? didn't you put this soft mels mix in here for me? Oh and how nice of you to grow comfy carrot tops for extra padding" I swear.. if it wasn't my cat.... I was able to harvest some rather large radishes from here today. Also, no carrots were squished or harmed in the taking of this picture.



cleaned up the garden a bit today. Finally pulled the cucumber plant (wasn't doing anything anyway), the watermelon (moon and stars) plant finally up and died, the white watermelon plant didn't die, but wasn't doing anything, so I pulled it up too. Also, the pumpkin plant finally had to go, I planted it to late so it never had a chance to do anything.

Well that is all for today. Wish me luck during our "cold" spell! haha

Betty,

If you encircled your garden with chicken wire, would that work? Don't think it would cost you much..

Duuh- I am thinking about rain barrell collection.. off the gutter drain... and am thinking about using our bath water for watering...anyone know of soaps to use in such a situation?

Rod, I haven't looked into grey water harvesting. It is something we have considered, but just haven't had time to explore yet. I would advise looking up grey water harvesting, or I know here in AZ there are alot of permiculture groups who provide classes and info on such things. See if there is a local permiculture group in your area. They have alot of good info on all sorts of things.

rod champion wrote:Duuh- I am thinking about rain barrell collection.. off the gutter drain... and am thinking about using our bath water for watering...anyone know of soaps to use in such a situation?

About Soap

Urban Homestead answers about gray water use in the vegetable garden

There are a few old threads that you can find on the forum about rain barrels and water harvesting. Good Luck!

Your garden looks so good. It will be some time before we are able to put out tomatoes and basil, so I love being able to see yours.



duhh, earlier this month, you commented about your artichoke not having enough room. I do agree, you will find the artichoke will grow to be at least three feet across and it will shade your tomatoes. I know you need some shade for your tomates during the summer, but the artichoke may cause a bit too much shade. Just something to consider.

Thanks Furbalsmom, I knew I should have left more room. For now, I'm going to leave it there. I think the Tomato plant will be tall enough not to be shaded by the artichoke. at least that is the thought! I will be more careful in the future. It sure is a pretty plant. I like it!