AZ Gardeners

[igorsMistress]

Hi. I am starting this thread for those of us who struggle with our gardens in AZ. We have some unique issues here and I hope to learn from others with more experience.

My biggest issue is knowing when to plant what.

I also would like to know if you guys start seeds in a greenhouse for transplant or direct sow?

Are there any particular methods you use like BTE or square foot?

I can get my desert plants to grow ok, but after the first year my tomatoes had blossom end rot and everything else struggled except my Armenian cukes.

Finally, how often do you water? I am pretty sure I overwatered but the plants were droopy.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[BlueBaby]

Subscribing to learn.

 

[ejcrist]

Hi. I am starting this thread for those of us who struggle with our gardens in AZ. We have some unique issues here and I hope to learn from others with more experience.

My biggest issue is knowing when to plant what.

I also would like to know if you guys start seeds in a greenhouse for transplant or direct sow?

Are there any particular methods you use like BTE or square foot?

I can get my desert plants to grow ok, but after the first year my tomatoes had blossom end rot and everything else struggled except my Armenian cukes.

Finally, how often do you water? I am pretty sure I overwatered but the plants were droopy.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Glad you started this thread.

Anyway, as far as when to plant what, here's the link to the local extension services planting calendar: https://extension.arizona.edu/sites/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1005.pdf

Personally I start everything from either seeds I've saved/bred myself or purchased from various sources such as Seed Savers Exchange, Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, etc. I've got a gazillian sources so if you have trouble finding anything let me know and I'll send you links. For seedlings I use seed blockers - you just create whatever soil mixture you want for the particular seedlings you're planning to start, press the block into the medium, and push on the handle and out pops a block with an indentation in the top to put the seed. I have small, medium, and large blockers. You start most things in the small blocks, and when they sprout you make the medium blocks which has an indentation on the top where the small blocks fit right in so there's no transplant shock or anything. Usually you can simply plant the medium block directly in the soil after you've hardened the seedling off for a few days - very easy.

I plant everything directly in the ground rather than using raised beds like many do out here. The purpose of raised beds is to dry out before the surrounding soil, and they're best used in places that get lots of rainfall, like back east where I grew up. Back there the soil oftentimes isn't dry enough to plant in the spring, and for stuff that has a long growing season you want to plant as early as possible, so raised beds or rows allow you to do that. I always hear everyone singing the praises of raised beds in AZ but they'll dry your plants out in a hurry with our heat unless you irrigate the heck out of them. The real reason many tout them is because they don't want to deal with the soil here which as you know is compacted and high pH. There are some cases where raised beds would make sense here, like in @DesertChic place where I believe she said the property used to be a rock quarry so it has very shallow soil. My sister lives in Los Alamos and they have very shallow shoil as well - in those cases it probably makes sense.

There's nothing wrong with AZ soil - it's generally high in minerals, low in nutrients, low in organic matter, and has a higher than average pH. The only thing you need to do to correct it is add compost and be sure to mix it in down to a depth of at least a foot. To maintain the soil continue to add compost, and do things like plant cover crops/green manures when nothing is growing (between crops). These two things alone will improve your soil tenfold and keep it that way. If you have a big garden cover crops are usually the most efficient way to maintain and feed the soil.

When choosing your plants try to stay away from stuff that isn't cost effective to grow, such as blueberries, etc. You can in fact grow 'em but it just ain't worth the trouble since your crop will be mediocre at best and will be very high maintenance to get to harvest. Stuff like tomatoes do just fine as long as you pick varieties that fit well in your particular microclimate, such as short season varieties. Some hybrids have even been bred specifically for the desert and do very well. If you save seeds from your own crops you'll notice they'll adapt to the climate in just a couple of generations - the same way chicken breeds do. Also some crops you might not think would do well here really excel, such as sweet potatoes. We grow a purple skinned variety that's very common in the Philippines and is simply called kamote over there (kamote just means sweet potato in the dialect I know). It's pure white inside and very sweet/delicious. Anyway, kamote grows so well here I have to make an extra effort to remove every tuber from a row or it'll sprout again with the first sign of warmth even though the spot where they grew hasn't been irrigated. In addition it'll take over your garden if you don't keep it pruned. I don't mind pruning it though because the tops are delicious and if you buy them in the Asian market they cost about $5 for a very small bag. But anyway, long story short, many, many vegetables grow better here than most places.

As far as watering goes, I have everything on drip lines that we make ourselves from the 1/2" black tubing and 1 gph emitters you can get at Homeless Depot. I have battery operated stand-alone timers on each individual row (get those at Homeless Depot too). There may be better ways to do it but that works for me and allows you to tailor your watering to whatever you have planted in a particular row at the time. The watering schedule totally depends on the crop you're growing. Of course melons, etc. need more, like maybe 30 minutes every other day during the hottest part of the season, and things like hot peppers need less, it really depends on a multitude of factors such as current weather, how much compost you have in your soil, crop variety, etc. Just take an educated guess and adjust from there depending on how well the plant is doing.

Anyway that's the Cliff Notes version of AZ gardening that I'm familiar with here just above Carefree Highway. I didn't plant much for this spring because I'm trying to get my third coop and run built which has taken most of my time. It's actually three coops with attached runs in one. But after I get her done I'll be sure to be ready again for the fall. I love growing vegetables and couldn't imagine life without doing it. I love growing chickens just as much and thankfully they both go together well - one complements the other. I don't know why people do drugs when they could just plant a garden and raise chickens - they'd have a lot more fun that way. I'm no expert but I'll be happy to share everything I learned so feel free to pm or post here. Heck, I'm sure there's a lot of things I'll learn to do better myself - that's a life-long activity. I'll try to logon at least once a day.

 

[igorsMistress]

I am in the planning stages for garden beds, not raised as I too prefer to amend the soil itself. We need 2 more shade trees and to get the eco turf in first.

Do you follow a crop rotation plan?

I have purchased from Native Seed down in Tucson but haven't tried Seed Savers. Thanks for that and the link to the extension services planting calendar, much appreciated.

I agree that gardening is the best "drug" lol. I got my chickens to help with that but they're quickly becoming a part of how I relax at the end of my day.

 

[ejcrist]

I am in the planning stages for garden beds, not raised as I too prefer to amend the soil itself. We need 2 more shade trees and to get the eco turf in first.

Do you follow a crop rotation plan?

I have purchased from Native Seed down in Tucson but haven't tried Seed Savers. Thanks for that and the link to the extension services planting calendar, much appreciated.

I agree that gardening is the best "drug" lol. I got my chickens to help with that but they're quickly becoming a part of how I relax at the end of my day.

Roger that. Yep I certainly rotate - forgot to mention that important point. I don't put anything from the same family in a given row any more often than once every three years. Yeah, not rotating will certainly make for a failed crop too - glad you brought that up.

Seed Savers is a great organization. They have a website where you can purchase seeds and also have a catalogue of members' info so you can buy, sell, and trade seeds. I've belonged to them for eons. If you want heirloom seeds it's the first place I check.

 

[igorsMistress]

Roger that. Yep I certainly rotate - forgot to mention that important point. I don't put anything from the same family in a given row any more often than once every three years. Yeah, not rotating will certainly make for a failed crop too - glad you brought that up.

Seed Savers is a great organization. They have a website where you can purchase seeds and also have a catalogue of members' info so you can buy, sell, and trade seeds. I've belonged to them for eons. If you want heirloom seeds it's the first place I check. 

I am going to check that out, thanks!

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Just posing so I get the notifications! Moving to AZ in June and need to learn the gardening seasons!

 

[igorsMistress]

Just posing so I get the notifications! Moving to AZ in June and need to learn the gardening seasons!

Yea, ejcrist makes it seem easy lol, but my green thumb turned black when I moved here!

 

[theback40]

Thanks for the thread,, it will be just as helpful and interesting as the chickens' thread, I'm sure!!

 

[cactusrota]

This is great! I grew up in Seattle, where everything grows like crazy, so figuring out how to grow a garden with success here is a bit of a mystery to me. And then we went on the road in a semi truck for a few years so I wasn't home to practice and learn.

We have crab grass and a few other weeds here that have literally taken over, so I've tried container gardening once (before we went on the road) just to avoid the weeds and didn't have much luck that way. (although it was cool "looking" because my containers were old russian rifle shipping crates..

)
I've been doing alot of research while on the road and really want to try some kind of version of the Back to Eden style, utilizing the summer and winter rains we get in my area. We have 5 acres and I've mapped out where the rain water runs through the property. Right now we're fully off grid with solar and no well, carrying home water in containers from the family farm, so I NEED to figure something out that doesn't take too much water, without an electric pump to run water. Hopefully we'll get a well dug soon, but I'm not banking on it until it happens.

I do have some seedlings started, mostly herbs though. I played around with redneck cold frames over the winter, mostly consisting of fish aquariums with glass on top and old windows over a recessed bed. Got lettuce, carrots, green peppers, etc... And now I have alot of other seedlings behind a shadecloth until I figure out what I'm gonna do with them. Last year we used the backhoe to half bury a jacuzi that I've got layered with wood, soil and mulch and plan on using that for my perennial herb garden. The mulch does an amazing job of keeping the moisure in.

Anywayz... I'll be checking in here regularly. Just tickled that we have this now.