Here is some additional info that you might want to provide in order for the knowledgeable folks that regularly post here to help you out(my 3rd year gardening so I'm not including myself in that group) - what are you trying to grow - how limited is your space (containers on a deck or in ground beds) - How limited is your light (in terms of hours) Based on the blog you mentioned tomatoes, peppers, watermelon, beans, squash and okra. All of which needs a lot of sun and some need a lot of space. I've grow S&M watermelon before and vines were 20 ft long. If I had one piece of advise to give to a newbie veg gardener I'd tell them to plant herbs and greens your first go around as well as the fruiting type plants mentioned in your blog. Although the herb/greens may not be as glamorous all you have to do is get them to grow and you can eat them where as the fruiting type veggies you have to grow them, then get them to fruit which take alot of time (watermelon=100days). Which means there is a lot of time for things to go wrong; bugs/weather/over+under watering/over+under fertilizing. Watching tennis ball size watermelons never develop and squash being destroyed by bugs is easier to stomach the first year when you pass it bye on the way to harvest some basil/lettuce. -

Thanks for the trades and the help in our community garden. To ymaddox, Charlie60, NancyPlants, FarnerGreg, mrs.b_in_wy your seeds will be on their way today, roper2008 return postage is headed your way. God bless you all! We STILL have some trades available and STILL need more help. It takes a lot to plant 1� acres and a good variety of veggies. Be sure to check out our initial post and if you have a surplus of seed and would like to trade or can send for SASBE to help the community outreach, please take a moment and respond. We will start our Greenhouse efforts at the end of February/first of March time frame and plan our community garden�s planting locations to ensure good rotation efforts�.just gotta know what we will have available to plan properly. Thanks in advance, ~Arkseven

Fountain Hills ... Your area is several degrees colder than the main part of Phoenix, which means you have to plant a bit more carefully. You have the usual fast-draining rock-filled mountain side dirt. Yes, it's probably alkaline. Don't bother trying to "improve it" ... it's perfectly good dirt for growing a lot of Arizona lovely native plants and plants from other arid regions. Go to a nursery or Home Depot and get a copy of Sunset's Western Garden's book. It's our best sourcebook for what grows here. Go to the Boyce-Thompson Arboretum near Superior and the Desert Botanical Gardens near the Phoenix Zoo. Look at all thge lovely plants you can grow here that can't be grown elsewhere.

If you live somewhere with freaky weather it is always best to sow a few seeds and then sow some two weeks to one month later to act as back up plants should the first batch not survive. Its all about timing. If they stay in their pots too long, some plants just never do as well in the garden as those that got outside and in the ground at the perfect time. You'll never be able to forecast that "perfect" time so just take the risks you're comfortable with. Hot weather lovers like morning glories and zinnias do not do any better starting them early. They just kinda sit still until things warm up so there isn't a huge advantage to starting them early. They will set seed which will over winter and sprout next year but the zinnia seedlings won't show up until summer is half over and the morning glories will show up where you don't want them and also a bit late. Two things will slow down seedlings - lack of sunlight (much stronger than indoor lighting) and lack of warmth. It is better the keep them starved for light while you wait for things to warm up outside. Cool temps bring with them all sorts of rot problems with seedlings. If you're starting large seeds of things like melons or cucumbers just stick two or three seeds in each space and then use scissors to chop off the heads of the weakest plants after they're a week or so old. No need to risk damaging roots by digging them up to thin them. The headless ones will sink back into the soil over time. The truth about roots - the roots you see when you dig up a plant are not the parts of the roots that do the actual work of drawing in water and nutrients from the soil. The real workers as far as roots go are microscopic. Only superman can see them with the naked eye (and he ain't much of a gardener!). You can gauge a plants health by looking at its roots but the damage that is done by handling baby plants is to the microscopic roots. Some plants just freak out when those roots are damaged.