Hello, soon the yellow thumb can turn green! Vegetable gardening is very rewarding in our area, but you have to learn when to plant. You have a mix of warm and cool weather plants. One great thing about our area is you can have vegetables and greens year around. Just have to know when to plant what. Okra, Corn, and Basil are summer plants. Sugar peas, lettuce, and argula are winter growers. I have attached the planting calendar from the U of A Extension Office. Have fun, and let us know how you do.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetable Planting Calendar

You might want to take a quick look in our FAQ for suggested books - there's really not much out there that will make sense for the Zonies with our unusual growing seasons. "Plant after last frost date" applies to most of the year and there's no reference to "Plant after last blast-furnace-like day..."

And that's just not right.

>smile

Another planting guide for our area...

Here is a link that might be useful: date guide for planting what veggies when

Thanks for the info. I've seen the planting guides and tried to follow them. I guess I just don't have good luck with some veggies. I followed the planting dates for okra and have never gotten the plants to grow beyond about 2 inches tall. Then they just wither and die. Carrots don't grow beyond a certain point either.

My spinach becomes infested with aphids as soon as it's worth picking. My corn tossles out before the cobs can get very big.

Everything just seems to stop growing at some point before it matures and I don't understand why. I've gotten some lettuce in the spring, a few beets, a couple small cabbages, and a few pea pods. My armenian cucumber plants grew like wildfire this summer, but I only got 3 cucumbers.

Maybe I'm planting wrong. I think I need gardening lessons.

PC - I need exactly that - the "plant after the last blast-furnace day" guide!

I could use the same guide myself!!!

Hmmm - are you adding compost to your soil? Assuming you are, how often?

>plant after the last blast-furnace day
LOL, PC hit it right on spot ... maybe you ought to start authoring it?

Ms. Yellow Thumb, I'm at the planning phase of my veggie plot, too. Btw, it was recommended somewhere to plant the early varieties. Post back here if you find something that worked better for you.

PC -

When we built the beds, we got dirt from Pioneer Rock to fill them. It was supposed to be good for gardens. Usually twice a year, in between planting seasons, I add more compost. This year I just added a bag of de-oderized steer manure and a bag of Miracle Grow Moisture Control stuff to each box. (I bought the MG stuff for a houseplant and am amazed at how well it holds water - no more water running straight through to the tray - so thought I'd try it in the garden).

The dirt is nice looking. Dark and soft and I have earth worms so I figure I must be doing something right.

I just bought a dirt thermometer and my garden is still pretty hot (about 100 in the sunny part). So I'm going to try the plant-by-temperature method and wait until it cools down more.

Also, I think I'm going to plant some corn, basil, etc. A lot of that stuff grows just fine up in Wisconsin (where I was born and raised) in the summer, and their summers can be a lot like a Phoenician winter! We'll see how it goes.

I'm planting everything from seed this year too. Maybe transplants don't like me.

I agree heartily with doing it from seed, I really do think they acclimate so much better than potted plants.

Keep in mind that we can get some pretty cold nights in Decemeber and some *really* cold nights in January. You might want to invest in some of those floating row covers - a lot of people said they were very successful on those nights we frosted hard. I do okay with sheets, but my plants aren't being grown with a harvest in mind, either.

The only comment I could make about your soil is that perhaps the manure was not well enough composted? "Hot" manure is high in salts, as is the MG, although lots of people use it very successfully. The other, probably more obvious answer to your past woes is that things were simply planted too late and it got too hot. After being raised in Michigan, I could never get the idea through my head that tomatoes needed to be in the ground before Feb was over. Try it by the calenders, as insane as it feels!

Good luck, let us know how it goes!!!

>>manure is high in salts, as is the MGHmmm...maybe that does have something to do with it. Do I just add more compost to it then? Maybe I should water it more before I plant to kind of flush some stuff out and get all the minerals and nutrients more evenly distributed.

>>The other, probably more obvious answer to your past woes is that things were simply planted too late and it got too hot.That could very well be I suppose. I try to follow the planting guides but maybe I need to start earlier. Maybe starting with seeds will help more too. Thanks for all your help. Will keep you posted. :)

A few things here--the manure you bought is not "hot", but manure tends to be higher in salts, as is MG. "Hot" manure is basically the fresh stuff which has not yet decomposted.

If you believe that salts are indeed the problem, change your watering schedule so you water deeply, and less frequently. You need to flush these salts past the root zone. Actually, it is good practice even if the salts aren't your problem. However, it does not appear to be the problem as the amount of MG in a bag of potting soil will not materially affect the salt content, neither will the bag of manure.

I just bought a dirt thermometer and my garden is still pretty hot (about 100 in the sunny part).

I want to clarify this. Is that the air temperature or the soil temperature? (you said dirt thermometer) If that is the soil temperature, you are in a heap of trouble. The roots are cooking. You will need to add at least a couple of inches of an organic mulch to prevent the sun from making contact with the soil surface. The soil temperature should not get much higher than 80 (in my experience anyway).

Although I have never grown any vegetables, but I may be able to find out the problem (assuming it is not weather related). First, how is the drainage? To find out, dig a hole about a foot deep and fill it with water. Wait until it drains, and then fill it up again. How long does it take to drain? Any longer than 2-3 hours you have a problem. If it sticks around only for a few minutes, and the water is draining too quickly to stay around the root area to be of much benefit. Another problem may be the soil itself. Try planting some easily grown annuals like marigolds and zinnias in the area. Do they grow well or are they croaking prematurely? If they are dying off, it could be that the soil is bad, which means you can't call yourself a yellow thumb because it isn't your fault. :-) (I wouldn't buy soil from anyone in any case).

Other things you can try are to try companion planting to get rid of the pests. I posted a link here in another thread about it to control pests. There are also vegetables which (they say) should be planted side by side because they they are somewhat symbiotic in their relationship(link below). Although not completely proven, you may want to try that also for the upcoming season (assuming no other problems). It couldn't hurt.

GL and HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetable Companion Planting

Wow. I think I have problems now.

100'F was the soil temperature. I followed the directions on the package which said to only stick the thermometer in about 2 inches. I wondered if that was deep enough though.

The beds drain very quickly I think. I haven't tried your test yet, but I always thought they drained fast. Maybe that's why even though I water, it's not sticking around long enough to do its job. I have tried companion planting and my marigolds and herbs almost always die pretty quickly as soon as the temperatures get above about 85 or so.

We have no real shade in our back yard. We bought a bit of a fixer upper, and we had so many dead things - like huge, ugly, dead cypress trees - to remove from the back that we can't afford to do any landscaping right now. Thus, the back is pretty barren and sunny.

But of course, the Bermuda still grows in the oddest of places. ;)

What kind of mulch is good to put on top of a veggie garden to shade the soil?

OK, that is at least part of the problems. Your roots are cooking.

My philosophy is to match the mulch with the plant's life cycle, ie, I want the mulch to break down over the plants' lifetime. For example, for annual vegetables I would recommend a mulch like straw (not hay which has more seeds). The straw will break down relatively quickly, usually within 6 months, especially during the warmer parts of the year (OK, I meant hot). Other good choices include such things as leaves, pine needles, and even shredded paper if you are in a pinch. For perennials, in my experience, there is nothing better than shredded bark or wood.

If you are going to go the route of straw ( I think this is one of the best choices), I suggest you get some newspaper and lay it underneath the straw. Put down 5-6 sheets of newspaper and make sure it is wet down thorougly, then put the straw on top. The reason you do this is while straw has fewer seeds than hay, it still contains some seeds which could still germinate. The newspaper will prevent the majority of from germinating in the soil (also a good "worm food"). Any that do, can easily be pulled out because their roots are in newspaper instead of the soil. A word of warning, DO NOT GET BERMUDA GRASS STRAW, unless you want more of it growing around. Alfalfa is one of the best, but most expensive. There will be a bunch available soon since Halloween is almost around the corner (hard to believe).

A final choice which I didn't give but still works is using compost. If you have a pickup truck, you can call a local compost company and drive down there and have the stuff loaded into your pickup truck. An average pickup truck will be able to hold about 1 cub yard of compost, or 27 cubic feet. It will cost you between $10 and $25 for a cub yard this way. Again, use the newspaper underneath to prevent any airborn seeds from getting established. You can use part of the compost to mix with your soil, and the remainder as a mulch.

Remember, no matter which mulch you use though, keep the mulch at least a couple of inches away from the base of the plants. Since mulch attracts many critters (most of them good), they will like the stems of the vegetables just as much as the mulch itself--so do yourself a favor and don't add the vegetables to their main course.

On another note, when you are ready to get rid of your cypress trees, find a local company that will shred all of the wood for you. That is a free source of mulch right there to use in other areas of your yard where you might have perennials growing.

Good luck and HTH

Here is a link that might be useful: Mulch Properties

Thanks for all the info. I have another question though. Your instructions talk about keeping the mulch away from the base of the plants. But I don't have any plants yet except my Armenian cucumbers - which were the only thing to survive the summer. So, the rest of my boxes are clear of all plants.

I want to plant seeds but how do I add mulch to keep the soil cool and plant seeds at the same time? Do I just plant them under the mulch? Do I wait to mulch until the plants start growing? If so, then I have to wait until the air and the soil cool off otherwise my seeds will just get cooked.

Also, is there anything else I can add to my soil to make it hold the water better so it doesn't just run right through?

We already got rid of the cypress trees long before I had the garden boxes. I'm not sure if they would have been good to use as mulch since they looked pretty ill. And I do have lots of bark chips around my "inferno strip" flower bed in my front yard. :) My rosemary topiaries and my dwarf bottle brushes have made it through the summer! My big beautiful geraniums croaked in July though.

I really appreciate the help. Told ya'll I needed lessons!

No problem--glad to help.

In terms of getting your soil to retain water better, there is nothing better than compost. For building new raised beds, I would actually suggest using 50/50 of native soil and compost. Compost will decompose each year, making the soil better, but it means you have to keep adding some each year. Also, when you mulch, water loss from evaporation will be decreased. That should rememdy that problem (newspaper helps quite a bit here) because your beds get so much sun.

If you are going to start your plants from seed directly in the bed, I would wait until it cools off before you do that. If you are going to start your seeds in those peat pellets or pick up some established plants at a local nursery, you might as well mulch the entire area first. You can then use a can or some other means to move away the mulch and cut throught the newspaper so you can transpant your seedlings. The choice is yous here. I think the transpants may do better if given the right conditions.

HTH

A great resource in Phoenix is "The Urban Farm". I received their email newsletter today, and it covers vegetable gardening. Some great tips, and what is being planted in the next two weeks. I didn't realize snow peas need to be planted by the end of Sep. Always put mine in too late. Also, they have some very good classes. If you are interested, send them an email to have you added to their newsletter.

Here is a link that might be useful: Urban Farm Phoenix

Thanks jim! I shall give them a look!