Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We have a brand new member of the household and it seems diapers and feedings take precedence over all else. I also had to learn how to post pics. Tansymoon, I don't know if you can bring a cattle panel home in a van. The ones I bought were 52 inches wide by 16 feet long. The store had a policy against loading 16 foot long items into a pick up bed (good call) so I had to bring a trailer. I bought mine at a local lumber yard called Lumber 2. They were also available at Atwood's Farm and Home, and Tractor Supply Company, as well as several local farm stores. Farfaraway, Yes, you can tuck the arch inside the frame of a raised bed, and I'd encourage it. I mentioned that I placed mine using railroad ties. I tried eliminating this step on one pair of arches and was sorry. Because the railroad ties were not there, when I pulled down to create the curve of the arch, the curve came in lower on the arch than was pleasing to my eye. (If someone will tell me how I can tell you to look at my photobucket, the misproportioned arch is there.) I dont' recommend using the roll of fencing for this application, although you can probably do other styles of trellis that would look quite nice. I don't believe the roll of fencing will be stiff enough to hold its shape. I think planting cool weather lettuce and spinach under the cover of peas will probably extend their growing season as things warm up. I haven't actually grown peas, just cukes on the trellis last summer, but peas were my (now unlikely) plan before we were blessed with diapers and feedings. I did not pull them out, because they were attractive as winter interest with white lights and later with icicles. Also, they marked the openings to my woodland paths, so I'm thinking they are semi permanent. My only casualty came from a tree crashing on one during our unprecedented December ice storm. The picture below shows two cattle panels together. After folding, but before bending, I tied them together with green plastic coated gardening twist tie stuff. With two together each side was 104" long. You can see the start of a couple of purple hyacinth beans at the front side. In addition, I planted 25 cukes along each side, one about every four inches. The cukes dangled inside the arch, which made for easy picking. The deer and racoons will vouch for that statement. "> My apologies that the photo is sideways and too big. The editing software at photobucket doesn't seem to like me. I played with it for two hours and it's time to move on.

Welcome to Arizona gardening. Its not required but recommended that your tomatoes either get afternoon shade or be protected from the afternoon sun with 50% shade cloth. I'm not sure how many bean plants you will need. I have not been as successful with them as some other members have been. I started a thread about tomatoes in the tomato forum that may be of help to you. The link is below. Peppers grow well here but do better with afternoon shade. From time to time a farmer will stop by and say they grow in Arizona without shade or shade cloth. Farming is different than vegetable gardening though. I drive by some farms on occasion that are not far from my home. Each time I do the temps drop as much as 5-10 degrees, sometimes more at night. A field full of peppers or tomatoes is evaporating massive amounts of water over a large area which drops the temperature and increases relative humidity. In my garden I can have 8 percent relative humidity at 110 degrees with a 15 mile an hour wind speed. At the same time in the farmers field its 99 degrees with 50 percent humidity with a 15 mile an hour wind. That dryer wind in the home garden in full afternoon sun can suck the life out of a plant. My main crops are squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and a few melons during the summer. If you click on the photo it will take you to my photobucket page where you can see more pictures. Here is a link that might be useful: What varieties will continue to produce through hot weather?

Hello, I have tomatoes, squash (yellow, butternut, and zucchini), Lima beans, field and sugar snap peas, carrot, and others (herbs, garlic, and such). This year something is off as I have had slow growing plants. The tomatoes are just OK, plants are about half the size I would expect them to be, though I have 2 new slightly different varieties. Even the volunteers are very slow growing and are very scraggly, but they are producing a little. The peppers I grew from seed are about 4" tall, the ones I started in containers have FINALLY taken off after 3 months. They even have some peppers on them! The Lima beans are doing great this year & all the peas did well too, the sugar snaps were about the same as you 12-18 inches, they produced then died off. then a few came back after I remove the pods. the field peas you cannot kill. Something may be wrong with my soil (though brand new soil (miracle grow potting mix) in the containers are having similar results on my porch). Every thing just seems to be growing very slowly this year. In a way I am glad the tomatoes are staggered a bit then the hopefully the harvest will not all be at once like last year. But I really wanted the stupid peppers! I even planted extra (like about 50 seeds)almost none of them came up! It wasn't til the third batch of seeds went into the ground that they would sprout. I knew then that this was not going to be a good year. We will have to just be extra patient!

Keen, the shade for peas makes sense! The Sweet Peas (ornamental) volunteer every year along the fence line but only where there is dappled shade. Next year I'll try them on the other chain linked fence along the drip line of the trees. (about 4 yards away from the others lol). We have been very rainy and cloudy for days with the sun peeking out only a few hours every now and then. All the peas, even the wind burnt ones, are taking off. You're right. They need that shade. I didn't realize it until you wrote about it. And it just hit me. I notice the Sweet Peas are not as numerous this year. Last year I cut back the trees along the outside of that fence. I exposed more sun! I've had excellent luck with the mold in my yard. I adore seeing the mushrooms come up. I kick them with intent of spreading the spores. I've had good luck using hay as mulch. A deep heavy mold begins growing if there is enough water. One year I found morels growing in the garden. At the time I didn't really know what they were! So, I've had many different types of mold growing. I have clay but it is heavy, but dark brown rich with natural organic matter - until I begin gardening. I try not to disturb it any more than I need. So, the leaves were awesome, but what really struck me was how fast it worked, like you mention. I've done many things over the last three years to soften that clay up, but nothing works that fast. Keeping the leaves moist as if a pile of snow were sitting atop is certainly the key. We've mostly been in drought and even last winter wasn't really a winter at all. I was using the leaves as mulch because I didn't have any hay pn hand. I had hand tilled the bed last fall. I scratched the leaves into the soil so they wouldn't blow away. I watered. And watered. Because we "were" in that drought. It was awful to be watering an empty garden in the middle of winter, but I wanted to help that soil along and bring in the bugs to make my plants happy. Boy, did it ever turn out great! I have a mandella garden split in 4 quarters. Only one of them has the leaves. The difference between them is huge. I will continue piling leaves on! We have had a glorious 5-1/2" of rain over the last two weeks or so. I lost half my potatoes, but it's worth it. thanks bon