Garden in the desert?

Does anyone here that lives in the desert have a successful vegetable garden? I'm interested in starting a couple of raised bed gardens, but I have no idea what would do well in high temperatures.

Any ideas?

I too live in AZ, and grow/have grown the following:

Carrots, broccoli, lettuce, lemons, figs, cabbage, cilantro, mint, basil, watermelons, citrus, lettuce, squash, sun flowers, corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppars (red, green, jalepeno, asian).

Almost anything will grow if you water it and give it good conditions. Hell at ASU in one of the courtyards they have bananas. The following are in my opinion the easiest to grow: corn, tomatoes, basil, peppars, broccoli. They were basically idiot proof, but we have grown all other things easily.

You can grow almost year round here if you pick the right stuff at the right times. Most stuff will die July/Aug except corn and citrus it seems. We grow some things open (direct full sun) and others in partial shade using trees and such.

Good luck and have fun, experiment with it.

Maybe do some research into HugelKultur too. I have been reading up on it and and have been impressed with what I have seen so far.

Here in S.E. New Mexico I grow okra, squash, tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, black eyed peas, cantaloupe, watermelon, peppers, etc.

This time of the year don't try any cole crops. It is just too darned hot.

Are you familiar with Whitfills nursery?
Brian,the owner has a 1 hour talk show on KFYI,every sat at 7am.If it can be grown in Az,he knows how to do it.
He can even tell you what your soil content is based on your area,and how to prep it.
I had a garden 2 years ago and grew tomatoes,peppers,carrots and even had some luck with watermelons.
Good luck,it's a fun hobby,

I don't garden in a desert but I suspect water conservation will be important. I used to have to haul every drop of garden water with a 5 gallon bucket from a river 100 yards away. I learned to conserve water. In stead of hilling up soil around plants, I did the reverse: Planted seeds in the bottom of a small depression, sort of like a 'dish' maybe 12" in diameter and 1" deep.. When it came time to water, the water would pool around the plant, and soak in near the plant instead of runningn a foot away and irrigating bare soils. This helped cut down water consumption by a LOT. Then I learned to mulch like crazy. I've used grass clippings, leaves and straw. I now use sudan grass mulch. I then also started planting in beds, with plants relatively close spaced. More shade on the soils, with the mulch, meant less evaporative water losses in the soils.

Between the dish method, the bed methods and the mulch I ended up needing about 1/4th of the water needed with traditional "stick everything in a long row" gardening.

I don't live there, but my understanding that a lot of the successful landscapes in AZ are on drip irrigation systems. Which isn't difficult to do nor is it expensive, some 3/4" black poly pipe, and some button drippers. Tie it on a water hose. For SHTF, you'd need a pump or an elevated storage tank of some sort.

Hugleculture, and Swales.

something like a DIY EarthBox (self watering system ) with a lite colored plastic ground cover to help prevent evaporation.. here in Fla I have to add water to mine about every 3 days

5K steppe desert in ID. max temps 115 in the summer, normal 95

I used split 55 gallon barrels, filled with a bottom layer of rocks, mid layer of moisture control soil, top normal soil. I had to buy a lot of amendments for the poor clay based soil. I had to water daily, especially with wind. The wind did more damage than the heat. When it blew the plants sucked water like you read about.

Tomatoes grew fine as well as strawberrys. I also grew a lot of herbs. Peppers grew out of control. Squash/canteloop did not do so well. I only got to go one summer becuase I was deployed.

Sub irrigation works the best, you can also use soil fabric or other cheap material to add some shade if you get too much sun. You can drive some T posts on the corners, then tie together with cable to lay the fabric on.

Buy plants form local nurseries and not walmart. The locals will have specific hot weather plants as the bigger stores get them form all over the US.

I would rather plant in hot dry vice wet weather any day of the week

YMMV

I'm in the 5K high desert in the rain shadow from the Sierra. 5-7" of precipitation / yr (snow and rain water equivlant total). It gets to 100° + and we only have a 90 day growing season.

After years of having a 30' x 40' garden, we ended up with approx 30 of these:

(Weeds & Onions - Can’t plant until mid June here)


Starting on the south side of the bucket, we high density plant with low to high crops. Example: carrots in the front, tomatoes in the middle, and corn in the back of the bucket.

Soil mix was initially - 1/3 dirt, 1/3 potting soil, 1/3 horse manure. Now we just mix in horse manure every year. We put bark on top for mulch.

Pressure compensating dripper tube from Home Depot. Use a filter if you are on a well....




Oh Ya ––- Marigolds in the front work great for pest control.......................

That may or may not be true.

I've shipped seedlings to California where they were grown for two months and shipped back to Texas, AND I've shipped seedlings 30 minutes away where they were grown and put on the shelf at my local Home Depot/Walmart 2 months later. Of course, your average consumer doesn't realize this because they don't know who sold this or that. I just find it odd that they can make money on something by shipping it back and forth to California as opposed to growing locally with a cheaper labor force and tax base.

Conversely, I've had small independently owned nurseries from Ohio want to buy summer plants from me in Texas because they claimed they were tougher and withstood the heat better.

I recommend reading the labels. At the big box stores, the suppliers almost always have their barcode on the pot with their location listed.

Its usually true where shit doesn't grow well, ie a desert.

Since its a PITA to grow stuff its easier to ship it in.

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