GARDENING

By Marilyn Pabon

Growing fruits and vegetables in the desert goes against everything you thought you knew about gardening. Though you can’t grow any one vegetable all through the year, you can grow some vegetables at all times of the year. This means you can make your own Garden of Eden in the desert if you want to and if you know how.

Gardening in most places means summer activity and winter rest, two simple seasons. If we think in these terms for our desert gardens, we miss the subtleties of several short seasons. These short seasons are powerful and determine the quickgrowing varieties we need to select to be successful gardeners.

Warming Winter Season

( MID-JANUARY TO MID-MARCH) 60 DAYS

This short season is quickly used up with digging planting holes, pruning grapevines and fruit trees, and preparing vegetable beds.

This is the time to sow lettuce, turnip, carrot, and beet seed directly into the warming ground near the end of the season. They will grow without bolting until the end of May. At the same time, it’s a preparation period for summer vegetables if you grow your own plants from seed. A greenhouse is needed to grow eggplant, tomato, and pepper plants. These will be set out at the end of this season.

Warming Summer Season

(MID-MARCH TO MID-JUNE) 90 DAYS

This is the time to set out your tomato plants that are at least 6-inches tall, and sow corn and squash seed. After a little while, set out peppers and eggplant and sow seed for cantaloupe and watermelon.

Toward the end of this season, the heat becomes too much for the corn, bush beans, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Plants continue to grow, but they are under stress, and their flowers fail to produce viable pollen. With the exception of cherry tomatoes. No fruit is set until the weather cools in September. It’s most important to select varieties that mature quickly before the heat arrives in early July. On the other hand, the heat favors watermelon, cantaloupe, squash, Chinese pole beans, okra, and black-eyed peas.

Hot Summer Season (JULY AND AUGUST) 60 DAYS

It’s too hot for most plants, but there is an opportunity for second and even third sowings of squash, watermelon, and cantaloupe seed.

Cooling Summer Season

(SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER) 60 DAYS

This is the end of the season for heat-loving plants such as squash, sweet potatoes, black-eyed peas, Chinese pole beans, and melons. Anything planted during the previous months continues to grow and produce fruit, but now the plants are old and declining in vigor.

However, tomato plants, peppers, and eggplant start to flower again, and their pollen survives to set fruit. It’s a beautiful time for these plants. They often do much better than they did in the Warming Summer Season before the summer heat stopped their production.

You can sow corn and bean seed at the beginning of this season, and they will grow quickly in the warm soil. By the time the plant reaches maturity, nights will have begun to cool, and pollen will be effective in setting a harvest. It’s a great time to plant fruit trees and strawberries.

Cooling Winter Season

(SEPTEMBER THROUGH NOVEMBER) 90 DAYS

Now we are thinking in terms of winter vegetables. The soil is warm, the days are warm, and the nights are getting progressively cooler.

The end of the summer vegetable season overlaps the beginning of the winter vegetable season. It’s usual to set out plants, but seeds can be sown too. In early September, try cucumbers, and you will be pleasantly surprised at their performance compared with springtime growth. For one thing, the fruit won’t be bitter, and varieties other than Armenian will do well. This is also a good time for a second round of lettuce which does best in the cool weather of fall and spring.

At the end of October, the weather cools to the point where plants grow slowly. If they are large and well established, they continue to increase in size. Newly set plants generally stand still or grow very little.

The first frost in November stops everything. It kills the beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers and knocks the leaves off the fruit trees.

The Dead of Winter

(DECEMBER TO MID-JANUARY) 45 DAYS

Hardly anything grows during this short season though plants are not necessarily dead. Lettuce, carrots, beets, and turnips, although frosted, are safe. Plants that survive cold but are dormant can be made to grow inside warm tunnels. These include all the winter vegetables and strawberries.

That’s the desert gardening year. Note that there are many seasons, not just two, and they are short ones.V

Marilyn Pabon is a Holistic Nutrition Consultant, Organic Gardener, Sourdough Bread Baker, and Author. To learn about her new series of Divine Feminine Handbooks, visit her website at CCD