Sprouts (aka the beginning)

So for the time being this blog will mostly be documenting my first gardening attempt ever. The fall/winter season is supposedly the best time to garden here in Phoenix. The season is basically from September till the first frost, which is usually December sometime. I am using George Brookbank's Desert Gardening, Fruits and Vegetables as my guide, and I'm generally following the recommendations found therein. Hopefully my backyard will be transformed from an empty dusty nothingness to rows of green veggies. This first post encompasses the work of Aug. 30 through today.

Background and research recap:

Although looking at the number of days between first and last frost, one might assume that you can garden year round here in the desert southwest, and to some extent, you would be right. However, the summer, particularly July and August are so hot that not much survives, so it is not entirely as it appears. We essentially have two fairly short seasons that are really prime for growing between a scorching summer, and the winter freezes, so often the varieties that do well here are short season types that were developed for more northern climates, where they also have short seasons, though for different reasons. I ordered all my seeds in the middle of August from Ed Hume Seeds. They specialize in short season varieties. My order arrived a week later. A complete listing of what I'll be attempting to grow this year, is as follows:

• Early Girl VF Hybrid tomatoes
• Sweetie tomatoes
• King of the North green peppers (sweet)
• Marconi Rosso red peppers (sweet)
• Red Ace Hybrid beets
• Marketmore 76 cucumbers
• Jackpot Hybrid bush zucchinis
• Blue Lake Pole beans
• Oregon Sugar Pod II peas
• Ingot Hybrid carrots
• Parris Island Romaine lettuce
• Olympia Hybrid spinach
• Arrowhead Hybrid bicolor sweet corn

Implementation:

With Steve Schrock's help we dug up three plots. The first is 10x10 ft just for sweet corn, then there are two 6x15 ft plots for everything else. Then I added steer manure, ammonium phosphate, and soil sulphur, dug those in and raked the beds. There rates were as followed, 1 cu. ft. manure for every 8 sq. ft., 3 lbs ammonium phosphate, and 5 lbs soil sulphur per 100 sq. ft. Those amounts are basically straight out of Brookbank's book. The soil here tends to be basic and very low in organic matter, and those additives work to correct that.



I started everything except the sweet corn in syrofoam coffee cups on my covered patio to give them an earlier start, while keeping them out of the heat/direct sun (we're still hitting 105). I used an organic potting mix, and they were all planted on Labor Day afternoon (Sept. 1). So far I've had to water them once in the morning, and once in the evening to keep them all moist. By Yesterday afternoon (Sept 3) I already had sprouts coming up! My lettuce was the first one I spotted, and the largest in number, with a few cucumbers peeking through as well. I was pretty surprised, but excited to see things growing so fast, since most of the seed packets said it would take at least a week.