September Planting

It was very fortunate that my procrastination and I delayed planting. This past Monday, our area was flooded with over 4 inches of rainfall. My garden area was a foot under water. Unfortunately, many had it much worse than I and their homes were beyond damaged by flooding, roof problems and fallen trees. Our desert wasn't prepared for that much rain all at once.

The soil was good and ready for the seeds I planted today. 

Sugar Daddy Pea

Green Onion

Organic Cilantro

Mesclun Gourmet Greens Mix (Arugula, Romaine, Kale, several Lettuce types)

Romaine Lettuce

Organic Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

Crisphead Lettuce

Cabbage

Spinach

Green Bush Beans

I also placed my growing tomato seedlings out in the garden area to start acclimating them to their future home.

Soaking Peas and Beans overnight

Morning

Noon

Garden Growers Helpful Documents

Here are the documents from our Garden Growers Meetings.

Information on Soil Preparation, Pest and Weed Control, Composting, Planting Times in the Arizona Desert climate, etc. I will add future documents to this post as well.

Alternative downloads from Google Drive:

Garden Growers Group Meeting #1 (Garden Soil and Planting)

Planting Times

Garden Growers Group Meeting #2 (Weed, Grass and Pest Control, Composting)

Garden Growers Group Meeting #3 (Garden Tour, Sweet Potato Harvest, Luufa Squash and Discussion)

Long Awaited

It's seems so long since I was a gardener. Pregnancy and my sweet children have topped my priority list for several seasons. I'm very excited to dive back into the dirt and grow some food for my family (and for sharing). 

I started a Garden Growers group for the families of my neighborhood, mostly those from church since I know them. I hope that others from the community are able to catch wind of it and be a part of sharing knowledge, providing support and sharing harvests. 

After each meeting we have with the garden group, I type up all the topics discussed and send out a informational document to all those who are interested. Those documents are now available for viewing and download on this blog. They are very informational for desert gardeners. 

My fall gardening season began with my husband and I shedding some sweat getting our garden area from weed-and-dirt status to fertile soil status. We added steer manure (purchased at Lowes for $1.09 a bag - 18 bags), removed the bricks from our past gardening layout, dug out the grass, removed as many roots as possible and roto-tilled. I also have a spot designated for composting so I can use that soil in the future to enhance my garden. 

A few weeks ago, my two-year-old and I planted four varieties of tomato seeds for later transplant into the garden area when the weather is less hostile.

In the next weeks, planting additional seeds in the garden area is on the agenda.

More to come!

March Life

The backyard is buzzing and birds are lively. The weather is allowing us to enjoy the pre-Spring growth. 

Sweet peas, spinach, lettuce and cilantro are still providing for our consumption. 

On March 16, I planted yellow squash (2 hills), melon (probably a cantelope variety, packet not labeled), watermelon, carrots and bell peppers. During the tilling process, we had fun with the worms.

Cilantro and new seedling spots.

Spinach, squash seedlings, lettuce and peas.

 Other beauties in our yard.

  

Record of the Citrus Trees this Year

I want to remember the ripening times of the citrus so next year I can be more aware.
We are not positive of the species of the 3 orange trees that we have. One (on the west of the yard) seems to be navel and are the best tasting for eating and juicing of all the trees. They ripened beginning to mid December. The middle orange tree was also ripe around that time and had decent oranges. The third tree (east) was not as tastey and the fruit was small. But, recently we started trying those little oranges and they are pretty good. I think that tree may be an Arizona Sweet and I was told by a friend that those get ripe later (Feb-Mar), so that would make sense. The yellow grapefruits were ripe late December and are better than I remember them. They were my favorite citrus this year. The tangerines were ripe and best in January, although some people enjoyed them before that when they were a bit more tart.
Before the big freeze, we picked all the citrus off the 4 best trees that we could because we thought the fruit would be ruined in the cold. We have since picked some that we couldn't reach as easy (tangerines, grapefruits and the AZ sweet oranges) and all seem to still be great. There may be a slight texture change, but definitely not ruined. So, next year we will know.

The East tree (maybe Arizona Sweet)

The Peas, Lettuce and Cilantro are Happy

And so am I that I have some gardening left. The pea vines are growing much faster now that the weather warmed up. Cilantro and lettuce all look great. Spinach is growing slowly. Everything looks pretty happy and I can imagine they are because the weather has been perfect.

Flowering Broccoli

I've been observing my two broccoli plants over the past months and wondering why they are behaving so differently from each other. One of them began making yellow flowers a while ago while the other did not. Now, the non-flowerer is creating some impressive broccoli heads and the flowerer is not. So, I went to my gardener knowledge center, Google. I came across another gardener with the same problem and the comments to her post were insightful. Apparently if the weather is not just right (too hot or too cold) the broccoli plant will go into seeding mode and skip the creating edible broccoli mode. So basically, it is now useless and I can pull it out after I let the bees have a little more fun with the blossoms.

My flowering plant got so top heavy a few weeks ago that it fell over, right on top of some of my lettuce. I would have just pulled it out then if I would have known I would get no veggie from it. 

All in the process of learning while gardening. That's why I do it, to learn from experience!