Category: vegetables in desert gardens

Follow the 90 degree rule for planting

Fall is definitely the best time to plant in hot, dry Western gardens. It’s actually a good time to plant in much of the world, because, after all, Fall is when Mother Nature sows seeds.

But not just any Fall day will do. In the desert southwest, including parts of Texas and California, you should wait until the average daytime temperature drops under 90F before you plant.

The issue isn’t only the air temperature, but the temperature of the ground. The soil, especially native soil, is far too warm now for the roots of transplants to grow. Between the dehydrating effect of the air temperature on new leaves and the “cooking” effect of the hot earth on the roots, new transplants may not survive very long even if you water them frequently.

How to protect your transplants

Clematis in bloom
The Clematis jackmanii in my backyard.

However, if you just can’t wait to start gardening again after a summer hiatus, you may be able to protect your transplants by placing a piece of tile or broken terra cotta pot over the root zone, thus keeping it cool.

I did this with a Clematis Jackmanii, a plant not commonly found in a hot, dry garden. I planted it by a trellis in a very sheltered corner with a broken piece of pot over the root zone. It grew and bloomed then over winter it died back. The following spring it rose from the seemingly dead to climb the trellis and bloom again. To see other climbing plants for hot dry gardens, to here.


You could also add shade cloth to help reduce the temperature.

Should you avoid planting in native soil?

I have to admit that the Clematis was not planted in purely native soil. In most of the Southwest the soil is alkaline and lacking many of those tasty chemicals that hungry plants need. Realizing this, I made sure the Clematis was installed in a flower bed with super-enriched soil made mostly of organic mulch. And remulching twice a year is a must with our poor quality dirt which leeches all the good chemicals out of the mulch into the dirt within months. “Poor dirt” returns to being “poor dirt” rather quickly.

Another approach is to plant in raised beds, but those large wooden or metal boxes can become rather expensive. So, consider going to Amazon to find grow bags for a more affordable solution.

They come in small, medium and large and are good for growing almost every type of vegetable or herb. You can fill these bags with soil you buy at the garden center or mix native soil into the bag with commercial potting or top soil. And all the good, nutritious chemicals in the growing mixture end up feeding your plants — not dissolving into the surrounding soil.

Playing for Julia ebook

Prickly Pears may save us all

Well, I’m late with this, but according to a five-year study at the University of Nevada Reno, those ubiquitous prickly pear cacti (Opuntia) can become a new source of bioenergy feedstock to replace fossil fuel. This cactus also does double-duty as a land-based carbon sink removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in a sustainable manner. Just like trees do.

This is especially important because, according to a biologist at Saguaro National park as the climate in Arizona and around the world is changing prickly pear cacti are becoming more common. They really like the new weather conditions and poor quality soil is no problem for them. So add a prickly pear to your garden to help with the changing climate. And keep in mind that prickly pear jam is delicious!

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  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

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Adios Lantana. Hello potatoes!

NOTE: this is somewhat apocalyptic, but there is a bit of humor at the bottom.

Until recently, prepping for the apocalypse seemed to be a fringe activity. It kept a few people busy stashing fairly expensive survival gear in their basement survival shelters. Some preppers even got reality TV contracts which probably helped pay for those high priced guns and goodies.

Since the arrival of the coronavirus, however, and especially since the shut-down of midwest meat packing plants, more and more people–me among them–are considering planting a “survival garden”. Prepping now seems a realistic activity as significant disruption of the food distribution channels suddenly is a real possibility. It’s a complicated issue but here is an article that explains how food disruption is already happening in the U.S. and around the world.

tomatoes on vine

Now I’ve never been a big supporter of homeowners trying to grow vegetables in a hot dry desert-like climate. It takes a lot of effort, water, raised beds, shade cloths, soil amendments or even the entire replacement of lousy alkaline desert soil to grow veggies in a hot dry garden.

Even with all that I’ve heard disappointing tale after disappointing tale from gardeners who tried to do it. The costs are very very high, especially when calculated at the total dollars spent to produce each tomato or cantaloupe or bunch of spinach.

I’ve always thought: it’s better to support organic farmers by buying their vegetables at the grocery store. As we all know it costs a great deal of money to grow organic vegetables which is why they are more expensive than regular store-bought veggies. Even then, vegetables and fruits from organic growers are less expensive than growing your own in your backyard.

I’m beginning to rethink this.

root vegetables

Here is what I am going to do: rather than going the big raised bed or full backyard garden routes, I decided to start small and checked on Amazon to find grow bags, especially potato grow bags. My reasoning is that people–think of the Irish back in the 1700s and 1800s–lived almost entirely on potatoes. Not a balanced diet, but nutritious enough to survive for awhile.

Other below-ground vegetables, including carrots, parsnips and onions, as well as herbs and even tomatoes can be raised in grow bags.

potatoes on soil dirt

Then today I learned this lesson: what grows reasonably well in one hot and dry location won’t live in another. Summer, I discovered, is not a good time for potatoes in Tucson. Sweet potatoes are a possibility, however. I’m going to have to do more research on what vegetables might grow in Tucson’s version of a hot, dry climate with its monsoons. Cantaloupes and squash are possibilities, I think. But when the weather cools I’m going to plant potatoes. Yukon Gold potatoes to be more specific.

Now I’m not advocating that you start a “survival garden”, but it seems to me to be worthwhile considering because now, more than ever in my lifetime, the future and the food supply seem very uncertain.

I’m not, however, going to remove the Lantana in my front garden and plant potatoes instead. Grow bags on my backyard patio are going to be my “survival garden”.

OK Here is a funny for you.

For art lovers: Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine (@tussenkunstenquarantaine) • Instagram photos and videos

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  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Is it an attractive weed, a native plant or tasty edible?

Rather than giving you gardening advice for March today I’m going to tell you about one plant, which turned out to be more interesting than expected.

Moving from one desert, the Mojave, to another, the Sonoran, has meant that I am learning to identify many new native plants, among them, the Common Mallow (Malva neglecta). The name “neglecta” is so apt because my neglect has resulted in massive growth of this plant in a narrow yard beside my house.

Surprise! Not a native

Yesterday afternoon, after I wrote the headline for this post and the paragraph above, I discovered that while this variety of Mallow is as common as dirt here in Southern Arizona it is not a native at all. Not even a native plant of the Western Hemisphere. It’s origins are in Egypt, probably in Nile marshes. That makes sense because the leaves are so large and dark green which is very untypical of desert plants, for example, the Desert Mallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua).

mallow plants growing wild

Since like most of you I am home all the time because of COVID-19, I tentatively planned to start removing at least some of this mallow mini-field.

But after learning more I’m not sure what to do about it. If anything.

How to eliminate weeds 3 ways–or not

Should I listen to the Round-up folks who claim to make it easy to exterminate with a quick spray? (We all know about Round-up so I won’t write more about this option.)

Or how about going extreme like some here in Arizona and blowtorch the weeds–uh…the mallow? You read that right: some gardeners here use flaming blowtorches on weeds because that will kill the seeds, too, even ones that are under a layer of gravel. No blowtorch among my garden tools, so that eliminates this one.

Then came the suggestion of a third way for weed elimination. A couple of gardeners recommended mixing 55% vinegar with water and a dash of liquid soap, then spraying it on the weeds. I am tempted to test this idea–someday when I feel I can risk using the vinegar in my emergency pantry for something other than salad dressing.

The next option is re-wilding

Inspired by a British gardening movement to let wild native plants thrive along roadsides and in city squares, should I simply let my Mallow continue to grow? In the U.K. a Back-to-Natives trend is growing (pun intended!) in an effort to support other native species, including bees, badgers and other wildlife. I wonder if here in Arizona, rattlesnakes and scorpions may find the mallow mini-field a friendly habitat.

Or should follow the advice of two forager friends who pick leaves of dandelions and mallows for their salads?

Behold the multi-use vegetable

mallow blossoms and seeds

They have assured me Mallow is edible, that its seeds tastes like its cousin, Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus).

“Use it in a salad or cook it to thicken soups like gumbo,” they tell me.

Then they go on to add: “It’s really high in Vitamins A, B, and C as well as calcium, magnesium and potassium. Like kale.”

Like kale?

No thanks. (And please don’t reply with a list of all the health benefits of kale. Broccoli, which I love, also is vitamin-packed.)

This morning I was informed by yet another Arizona gardener of one more use for Common Mallow’s big, soft leaves: as toilet paper! Eureka! That’s the solution to the hoarding problem. Plant Mallow now and have a lifetime supply of t.p.

And if the coronavirus situation and the hoarding get worse, maybe I’ll start picking the Mallow leaves and selling them on a street corner as a multi-purpose vegetable for kitchen and bathroom.
Respect the weeds. Stay safe. Happy Gardening.

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat

Free seeds thanks to Libraries, Yahoo and Google

Back before the Yahoo search engine, and later Google and Amazon, came along, libraries kept large wooden cases called card catalogs listing each book they owned on a small piece of paper filed alphabetically. These catalogs were good for finding books if you knew the book name. As for discovering new books on the same or related topics-well, digital search engines beat the old card catalogs hands down.

So libraries joined the search engine world and card catalogs joined buggy whips as obsolete curiosities.

But what to do with these large heavy wood cases?

seeds in card catalog at Tucson Library

Check out locally grown seeds

In Tucson, the library system decided to turn the card catalogs in three of their libraries into “seed catalogs”, of a sort. But no need to open your wallet to purchase the seeds–it’s like checking out a book. Library patrons can check out seeds–mostly vegetable and herb seeds–for free. Most of the seeds appeared to be “home-gathered” and packed by hand which means they came from plants that had actually been grown in a hot, dry garden. That, in turn, means the plants grown from the seeds are more likely to survive our harsh conditions.

Look through here to see a few of the seeds available:

When I asked the librarian about checking out seeds she told me that there was no requirement to “return” or replace the seeds, although they would appreciate it.

I think this is a brilliant idea and one that should be copied by every library in the country. After all, every one of them probably has a big card catalog if they haven’t already disposed of it. And I’m sure the idea would be supported by garden clubs and gardening enthusiasts across the nation.

Coming soon: frugal gardening

There are, of course, other ways to obtain seeds and starter plants for free or very little. I will be writing about them in my next post because frugal gardening has turned out to be a very hot topic! Stay tuned…but meanwhile mention the card-catalog-turned-seed-catalog to your local librarian.

We're Savings Seeds sign Tucson Public Library

Our 8 most popular newsletters

  1. Best and beautiful native shrubs for extreme heat
  2. Five fragrant plants for your garden
  3. Where to get free or cheap trees for your garden
  4. Six distinctively different landscapes to replace a lawn
  5. Cover up that naked wall
  6. Nine trees to combat climate change
  7. Four desert trees good for soil, 4 toxic ones
  8. Plants that bloom even in mid-summer scorching heat