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Vegetable Gardening

Here's my arizona garden-trellising question too.

16 years ago

My garden is pretty small, maybe 8'x10'. We just built a 4'x4' raised bed that will be a SFG once I re-tie all of the dividers. Gardening out here is extreme, but not impossible. My only problem is that I love to garden and be in my garden, but it is always so hot (right now, it's 105* so today's high should be about 108*). I have had to do a lot to the native soil to make it even tillable. It was so hard and dry. Last week, I added compost around all of my plants and soil, today, I shredded up newspaper and surrounded my plants and soaker hoses with it. I know I need more though.

Here is a picture of the whole thing:

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Here is my new bed for my cabbage, lettuce, swiss chard and who knows what else:

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Basil:

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Onion:

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Cherry tomatoes (I have 2 of these plants):

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Heatwave Tomato:

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Bell peppers (there is a whole row):

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Artichoke:

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Ears of corn:

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Great Northern White Beans:

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And my Sunflower Run 3'x25'(soon to be):

{{gwi:90515}}

Now my troubles. I have way too many watermelon (sugar baby) and pumpkin. I originally planted them in rows, but now I'm thinking, to trellis or not to trellis? Maybe trellis just one or the either? My watermelon are the first row next to the fencing. Can the fencing act like a trellis? It is only about 2.5' high.

Watermelon:

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Pumpkin:

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Pumpkin flowers forming:

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Comments (3)

patty4150
16 years ago
Hi!

I'd probably trellis them - what's the downside? I think the shade it would cast shouldn't be too much of an issue given the amount of sunlight and heat you get.... though I am no expert. I might thin out the watermelons a bit, and is there something going on with your pumpkin leaves? I can't decide if they look like they have a whitish tint to them or not.

It looks very dry there, but your plants look healthy. The raised bed looks nice - will you be using it immediately or waiting until the temps fall?

Otherwise, for the main garden, I would try to add organic matter as it's available. Things look healthy - so maybe the amendments you have done are all right on target.

I'll be curious to hear how things progress.

-P
growingup
Original Author
16 years ago
My poor pumpkins are fighting a battle. The leaves on top are really old. This particular plant was started from seed back in March. It was transplanted in May and boy did it fry and die. All of the beautiful leaves shrivled and died. With much watering and shading, they did come back. The leaves that are older are a bit light, but all of the new growth is nice and green. The older my garden gets, the more I learn about composting, mulching and fertilizer. I've learned for instance, that things cannot be transplanted out here-period. Everything does well when started outside. It learns to deal with the harsh elements and accustoms itself from sprout how to deal with it. Such as my watermelons. The transplants fried so bad, they didn't come back. However, the ones you see were planted 2 weeks ago and they are awesome!

The new bed was supposed to be for my fall SFG, but I can hardly contain myself. How can I look at all that beautiful dirt and not plant something? Scratch that. My big stupid great dane just rolled her big butt through it and tossed all that gorgeous (expensive) Mel's mix all over!!!
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Violet_Z6
16 years ago
growingup,

You're off to a good start! Yes, you do need more mulch. A lot more! I recommend a solid layer at least 2 full inches thick across the entire bed, not just around the main stem of each plant. As for the watermelon, the plants don't differenciate a "trellis" from "fencing". So long as it's something they can climb, they don't care if it's a tree or a trampoline. Your watermelons will probably end up being more "contained" than anything else. They'll likely canopy the ground in as much room as they can take.

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