From My Garden to You

Update on my corn This corn was planted about a month ago and has finally decided to start to grow a bit. Might have to do with the fact that I finally got the irrigation sorted out properly !! Anyway, if it keeps up this rate of growth we should have corn ( hopefully) by the end of October. It was planted in the brand new plot - if you look at the earlier blog posts you will see how I started with bare cracked earth (July 2nd) and gradually brought the soil back to life.     It is now about one foot tall. I will let you know how it progresses.   Happy Gardening !!  

What to do in your garden in July (apart from hoping for rain!) July is hopefully the month when we get some monsoon rains - yay ! The humidity is rising and this actually gives the plants a little bit of relief from the heat, even if it is a lot more uncomfortable outside for you and me. So what should you be doing this month ? July Checklist Watering Check for irrigation leaks. Continue watering schedule as per June, unless it we get a good monsoon soaking. Deep and less frequently is always preferred over shallow and often. Find a wonderful person to water for you if you go on vacation and if you have a battery operated irrigation timer attached to a hose bib, make sure to get them to check if the battery is working. ( I speak from experience here. There is nothing more soul destroying then coming back from vacation to a dead garden, because the battery on your timer decided that this was the week it was going to fail !). Trees This is the ti...

How to start a garden from bare cracked earth like this ! So... I am starting a new vegetable plot and thought I would share with you all how I am going to do this. Hopefully it will be ready for planting in the Fall when it is cooler (ha ha). I get asked this question a lot when I teach classes about soil, so I thought where better to actually show the process, than on my blog. That way you can follow what I am doing and see how the soil is slowly brought back to life during the next couple of months. I am going to show a few different way of doing this as well. Here's what I am starting with -   Garden Plot abandoned by previous gardener at the Community Garden where I garden. Weeds are mostly dead but still have to be removed.   One of the first things to do is just water the soil, I know that sounds a bit crazy, but there is no way you can dig bone dry cracked earth. The soil must be watered even before you lay anything on top.   A...

Another spiralized recipe - a healthy salad So my zucchini are still producing - albeit slowly and now I trying patty pan squash in the spiralizer. This is a very easy salad to make and while I have not grown all of the ingredients, most are from Arizona, so I am supporting local producers, if nothing else !   You can pretty much use any greens of your choice to start with. In this case, I used hydroponically grown lettuce, but I have also used spinach that I purchased at Prescott framers market too. (A good little market to try out on a Saturday morning at Yavapai college.)   I then layered on top the following:   Spiralized patty pan squash (my own) Spiralized cucumber Halved yellow cherry tomatoes (my own) Chopped local figs Toasted AZ pecans Crumbled feta cheese ( Goat Cheese would work too) Chopped basil from the garden.   ( You could also try spiralized carrots, chopped melon and mint, the combinations are many, ...

What’s happening in the garden end of June/beginning of July ? July is a month of hot days and warm nights – how is this any different from June??!! (ha ha) Well, the humidity has increased for a start and fruit production for tomatoes, sweet peppers and summer squash is markedly decreased. My cherry tomatoes are still producing, albeit slowly and the bigger ones have by now either given up the ghost completely or are just ticking along trying to weather the next few months without actually dying ! There is still green growth but it is slow. To be honest, if that is all they are doing, then I am fine with that. All my summer vegetables are mulched with straw to keep the soil and plant roots cool and to try to retain some moisture. You will find that many of your plants - such as squash may be wilting in the afternoon or the hottest parts of the day. If the soil around them is moist, there is no need to water any more. Just wait until it cools down a bit and if the plant p...

Malabar Spinach - A heat tolerant Summer Green ( Basella alba) Yes... there is a summer green you can grow in the Low Desert !!   Red Stemmed Malabar Spinach Malabar Spinach is a heat tolerant summer green. It is not really a spinach but actually a type of semi-succulent vine, but the good thing is it grows really well in our Arizona summer. There are 2 kinds - the more popular red stemmed, as well as a green stemmed variety.   Red Stemmed Malabar Spinach - note how the stems are vining up the sunflower stalk. Cultivation: It is native to Asia, the  plant having thick, succulent heart-shaped leaves and white flowers. The red stemmed cultivar "rubra" has thick reddish purple leaf veins and stems and thus is considered to be more ornamental. As the season progresses the flowers give way to purplish-black berry looking fruit. Once the temperatures reach above 90 degrees F, it really starts to ramp up its growing habit, often growing ...

Harvest Pasta Sauce with Spiralized Zucchini Having made the pasta sauce as I described in the previous post, you can now choose to either sieve it or use it as it is. If you do sieve it, that removes the seeds and bits of skin. For sieving, I use the method shown below:- Sieved pasta sauce - all organic, sown, grown and harvested in my own garden. Such a delight to be able to do this I must say ! So now I have the pasta sauce, I can either freeze it or use it in the next day or so. One of the ways I like to use it, is with spiralized zucchini "pasta". The good thing about this, is that the "pasta" is completely carbohydrate free. I just heat up the sauce and then throw in the zucchini "pasta". Turn off the heat, stir the "pasta" into the sauce thoroughly and by the time you get your plate out and serve it, the zucchini "pasta" is cooked. Spiralizer and homegrown zucchini Zucc...

Harvest in the Heat   Believe it or not, all these were harvested yesterday morning. Despite the heat, I am still harvesting from my vegetable garden. As well as tomatoes, there are 3 kinds of squash, peppers and just ready - the first grapes.   It is too hot to really plant anything right now, so hold off for a little while. Now is the time to look at those seed catalogues/websites and decide what you are going to plant in the Fall. Another post will include some suggestions of good low desert seed varieties, so watch this space !      

  Heirloom Tomato Tart photo      

           Tomato Tart Recipe A great way to serve all those heirloom tomatoes !           1 sheet puff pastry, thawed but still cold 2 tbsp olive oil 1 cup ricotta cheese 4 oz crumbled goat cheese 2 large eggs 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper ¾ tsp coarse salt ¾ lb tomatoes, cored halved and sliced about ¼ - ½ “     Heat oven 425 degrees.   Line large baking sheet with parchment paper.   On lightly floured surface roll pastry to 10’ x 15” and transfer to baking sheet. Score border 1’ from edge all around rectangle, not cutting through the dough all the way. Prick dough inside the border all over with a fork, this allows the border to rise higher than the inner part. Brush inner part all over with 1 tbsp of the oil.   Mix 2 cheese, eggs, basil, ½ tsp salt and the pepper.   Spread this mi...

Hot, Hot, Hot !!! What's a Gardener to do ? Over the next few days, we are going to experience some dangerously high temperatures here in the low desert of Arizona. As I write, it is 109 degrees Fahrenheit outside with 4% humidity. Below is a weather link if you are interested in more details. https://www.google.com/search?q=weather+phoenix&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&gws_rd=ssl Tuesday, it is supposed to be 121 degrees Fahrenheit ! Neither I,nor my plants, have experienced anything like this sort of heat before. I am not sure what it is going to do to the tomatoes, but I will definitely let you know.  Watch this space later in the week. In the meantime, watering and any gardening will be done early in the morning, when it is cool(ish), if 80 degrees Fahrenheit can be called cool. In fact it is not necessarily the daytime heat that will kill the plants, but rather the fact that it does not cool off enough at night that ...

How to grow sweet potatoes I have been asked quite a lot recently, what can I plant now ? Well......it is going to be dangerously hot quite soon and honestly, you really shouldn't be planting anything. However, for those of you who are interested. Here's a little bit of information about planting sweet potatoes. It is rather late to be doing this, but if you want to try - I say go for it ! Sweet potatoes grow very well here in the low desert. They need a long warm season to grow to full maturity, not a problem here. It is a fun thing to start them off at home. ( See photos below). Begin by purchasing an organic sweet potato, you don't one that has either been sprayed with pesticides or a chemical to stop them sprouting.   Place the potato in a glass that is half full of water and just put it on the counter in the kitchen or somewhere else in the house that you can keep an eye on it.   You can see that there are little indentations on the surface of t...

Saving Pea seeds A month ago, in early May, my peas were finished and I collected the pods that had never been harvested (the ones that got away!), plus some pods that I was saving for seed. How did I do that you may ask ? Well, I allowed the pods to reach full maturity on the plants so that they were nearly dry and then carefully collected them into a paper bag. I made sure the paper bag top was folded over and placed the bag on a shelf in the garage for a month, so that the pods could dry put thoroughly. It is important to make sure the top of the bag is folded over, because once the pea pods dry out completely, their method of seed dispersal is for the pod to burst open explosively, scattering peas everywhere in the local vicinity. This works great for the pea plant in the garden, but trust me - you don't want peas all over your garage floor -so keep that bag closed ! Today I brought the dried pea pods into the kitchen, harvested the pea seeds from the pods, packa...

Why grow Sunflowers ? I like to grow sunflowers to provide summer shade in the garden. I have been growing them for so long now that they seed themselves. I allow them to grow, if they provide shade for crops. Those that do not provide shade or are in the pathways and so on, are removed and composted. It is bit of a hit or miss thing sometimes, but generally has worked well. I do prune off the lower branches as they grow and end up with "sunflower trees". The variety of sunflowers are unknown, but they are not the large dinner plate size flowers, but rather a small, branching variety, with many smaller flowers. Often termed "wild sunflowers" perhaps ?