All posts by Monna

Summers in Arizona can be truly miserable. It’s a scorching, painful but brief interval in a place where we enjoy gorgeous weather the rest of the year. But taking tiny people out in the middle of the town is probably ill advised if you want to avoid their getting heat exhaustion or a bad sunburn! On summer mornings, I get up as early as reasonably possible to go hiking or walking – usually around 5 – and spend only small amounts of time outdoors the rest of the day.

Consequently, when the weather begins to change during our version of “fall,” I find myself loath to come inside at all. I wake up a little later, go on my walk or hike, come home to make the kids breakfast and then go back outside as soon as possible. My favorite thing to do is let the kids play outside while I stick my hands in the dirt and try to grow things.

Thus, I’ve been creating gardens wherever anyone will let me plant!   The latest garden is at my sister-in-law’s  house. Here is what we’re doing there…

Her back yard has an existing raised bed – part of which is part of the structural support for the tall wall behind her house. As you can see, her kiddos have been putting it to good use.

But, she wanted to plant something delicious there so we got to work. Because the dirt serves dual purposes of food growing and structural support, we decided to use the front half of the bed for gardening but leave the back undisturbed.

This existing flower bed was definitely more work – even with lasagna gardening because we didn’t want it to be any taller than it already is – at 3.5 feet. So, rather than building up, we started digging. And – WOW – what hard work!! Unfortunately, this bed had not only been covered with “ornamental rock” – (GRRRR!! I hate that stuff!!!) – it was comprised of very hard clay soil filled with even more rocks.

Good thing I had my sifter with me. My father-in-law made this for me from some wire and wood. It does a great job of sifting out most big rocks so we can still use the native dirt (with amendment of course).

Even with the sifter, there were tiny rocks left. I’m not worried about them because we layered that garden with great stuff – just like my original garden. See the process here.

After about 6 hours of serious work (longer than it would have been if we hadn’t been chasing two toddlers around the yard!), we finally finished the bed and planted seeds. And our lovely new gardener chose to plant lettuce, carrots, broccoli and spinach. We added some bachelor buttons for color and to attract good insects.

Now my sil just has to find time to water 5 minutes a day till the seeds come in and we’ll install a drip system. Bet her boys will love eating carrots from their own garden!

Several years back, my mother-in-law (God bless her, sweet woman!) agreed to let me build a garden box in her back yard so we could do something fun together that we both enjoyed. We forged ahead, filled the boxes with compost and started planting. Our first gardening venture went great and we enjoyed a good harvest of plants and flowers.

Then…dum, dum, dum… I got pregnant. Everything I loved about gardening turned to dust…really…because I let most of it die. The smell of my favorite herbs – rosemary, basil, thyme etc. – made me want to turn and run the other way. Thankfully, the herbs grew – though unloved at the time. Though I’ve been gardening on a smaller scale since then, I was using most of my nurturing energy on babies.

Well, my break has lasted long enough. I’m ready to be back in the garden, breathing in the fresh clean air, feeling the dirt between my fingers and longing to eat something I’ve grown. Alas, our garden space looked a bit different…

In the past, we filled our gardens with compost – which can be expensive to buy and takes time to make yourself. This year, we decided to try “lasagna gardening” instead and it’s proven to be so much easier.

Here’s how it works. Instead of going through the process of buying or making compost, you just create layers of compost ingredients. These layers break down over time and create super rich garden soil. It’s the perfect lazy gardener’s garden! You don’t have to wait for the layers to disintegrate – you can plant immediately. And – no digging required. (Um, unless you let your previous garden go to seed. Whoops!) Just lay down some paper and start this process anywhere in your yard.

This is what we did. After digging the giant weeds out of the garden, we put down a layer of cardboard and some layers of newspaper & hosed them till wet.

Finally – the fun part! We planted seeds – chard, broccoli, carrots, kale, radish, spinach, chamomile, catnip, bachelor buttons etc. – and a whole bed dedicated to onions and leeks. (Onions are an obsession of mine!!) We threw a thin layer of straw over the top of the beds to help the soil retain moisture (spongy). The seeds need to stay moist for the next few weeks till they all germinate.

We have already seen a few tiny little plants coming up but I’ll post pics as they get bigger!

These are some other things you can use in a lasagna bed – pretty much anything you can compost goes in there.
Peat moss
Manure
Dried leaves
Fruit and veggie scraps (I like to chop these up or blend them so they break down faster)
Vegetation scraps from around the yard
Coffee grounds
Shredded newspaper

And – to answer the questions some of you are asking about what to plant…

These are the things that can be planted in Arizona right now.
Beets
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Carrots
Chard
Collard greens
Lettuce
Leeks
Kale
Endive
Garlic
Onions (YES!)
Parsnips
Peas
Radishes
Spinach
Turnips
Beets

Here’s a link to a great calendar by the U of A on gardening in the low desert.

Any of you planting a garden? What plants are you putting in? I love to get comments from you!