It’s been a long time since I’ve done a garden update. We had some priority changes over the winter and have down sized and reorganized. The weather has been quite erratic and we haven’t had consistently good weather for planting out warmer crops. But that’s finally changed. It looks like early summer is here even if the summer solstice is a month away still. We can now safely start planting out our brassicas and warm season crops.

I want to take a moment to talk about mini gardens. I think it’s really important that everyone grow their own food if they have space. I’m not talking about all your food, that takes acres. But you can grow a decent amount of food for two-three people in even a 10’x10’ space.

Above is section one of my vegetable/herb garden. This space is fenced in like this to protect it from the deer that come in from the mountains above to check out everything in my yard and eat it all or eat enough that’s it’s ruined for human consumption. In this picture I’m currently working on removing grass and weeding.

I’ve been experimenting with different bed types. I have a wooden boxed in raised bed, a large 4’ in diameter grow bag and an in-ground bed and some containers. So far the clear winner is planting things in the ground. second best is the wooden raised bed. The grow bag is horrible idea in the high desert. Unless you have access to secondary irrigation water, I would not recommend grow bags. It’s too hot, dry and windy for them. They dry out so fast and the roots never really take hold because they get air pruned.

In the fall I’m going to rework this little area to have more organized rows or in ground beds. There is a lot of wasted space currently and I could grow so much more with some organization. If you are wondering why this space is so small, it’s because there are massive trees along the fence line that aren’t mine that shade most of the yard and this is the sunniest spot.

There’s one great thing about gardening, as long as you aren’t too stubborn about holding on to the way something is you can experiment and rework a space to get it just right.

4x6 raised bed with peas radishes fennel and row cover

In the wood framed raised bed I have planted some cool season crops: peas radishes, fennel. Under the row cover I recently planted out two types of summer squash. Behind the fennel, in the middle, I am trialing some marigolds for natural dyes. I’ll let you know how that goes towards the end of the summer when I harvested enough flowers for a dye pot. The raised bed is 4’x6’. When the radishes come out I will put in basil and tomatoes.

Here is a close up of the grow bag. I don’t love the results of the past two season of vegetable growing. I’m giving it one last growing season just to see if I deep, deep water it and give it consistent fertilizer through out the season, if I can get better results. In this bed is kale, chard, lettuce, sorrel, spinach, dill and one tiny bok choy. Only one bok choy came up. I think my seeds are too old.

vegetable seedlings in seed trays on a table

Today I spent the afternoon at the big garden potting up summer crops. I’m so exited to have so many “sweet heat” peppers. They are delicious on homemade pizza or in noodle bowls. We’ve got celery, several kinds of hot and sweet peppers, sauce tomatoes, slicers, cabbages, onions, kohlrabi, garlic potatoes and other stuff I’m forgetting I’m sure.

Quick garden tips:

start small, 4’x6’ bed is great
if you think you’ve watered enough, water more. Unless you live is a very wet climate
pests will come, get a good book on how to deal with them
gardening is hard, keep at it. Crops will fail, pests will come, it won’t rain, a dog will taste one of your pumpkins before it’s ripe and ruin it. Keep growing and learning
the taste of a slice of warm, homegrown tomato, with salt, pepper, and a basil leaf will keep you going when you want to give up

What are you growing this year? Do you want to learn to garden? Let me know in the comments below!