FROM THE BEGINNING
Gardening In The Desert is a collaboration between two very enthusiastic gardeners, sweating through summers and smiling through winters as we play in the desert dirt of Phoenix, Arizona.
We are Ayshica and Jessica and we are sharing our experiences- the blood, sweat and tears, the victories, and failures, the tips and tricks and everything in between on our gardening adventure.
WE ASPIRE TO HELP OTHER GARDENERS
Especially those in a desert climate, by providing extensive information on what we have both learned on our gardening journeys.
People often say they have a black thumb, we say it is an Untrained Thumb. Join us on our journey and allow us to help you turn that Untrained Thumb into the Greenest Desert Thumb you could hope for!
AYSHICA ANDREWS
I am Ayshica and Solitary Bee Gardens is my little sanctuary.
It was started 4 years ago on a postage sized side yard with brutal summer conditions. I was so determined to grow something though and through the tears and frustrations, there was also so much learning and appreciation, as well as a growing gardening addiction. I had the desire to start growing my own food because I wanted to have something organic, local, and more nutrient dense. It started out as a very practical reason, but getting my hands back in the soil transformed me and suddenly there was this ardent need to grow as much as I possibly could, to learn and absorb every bit of information I could.
I wanted to name this space that was stretching me, bringing me so much joy and curiosity and I played around with different ideas. One morning, after returning from South Africa and stepping into the garden for the first time in two weeks, the name literally flew into my space!
Up until this point, I had not seen any bees in my yard. However there was this amazing creature happily bustling about visiting the flowers on some bolted broccoli raab. Immediately the name was clear, and Solitary Bee Gardens was born. I have since moved, and now have a much larger garden, but the name is still perfect.
Solitary Bee Gardens started out as an idea that was only about function- to grow healthy food. However, it soon became clear I needed much more from my garden space and it continues to evolve, as I evolve as a gardener. As I started on this journey, I realized that I really missed flowers. I wanted beauty around me and I wanted to support pollinators and other beneficial insects. So I started to add in flowers. I also work with herb medicine, and I wanted to be able to grow my own herbs for culinary use as well as medicine making. As a result, it has become a happy jungle of plants that supports a rich and varied insect population, many geckos, a fantastic blue skink, hummingbirds, and many other featured friends.
My garden is grown mostly in containers, with a few in ground plants and a couple of raised beds.
Initially, container growing in the desert was the biggest challenge I faced, but, I have since learned how to adapt containers to desert gardening. I want to encourage and inspire other gardeners who may also have challenging gardening conditions to work with.
Gardening truly is my passion. I am a certified Maricopa County Master Gardener, and a student of Permaculture. I even found a way to combine my day job with gardening. I sell real estate, and my special niche is helping gardeners find a property that matches their food growing needs, whether that is a homestead, food forest or urban backyard garden. I also highlight beautiful properties that have incredible gardens for those needing to move onto a different property. It is the perfect combination of doing two things I love.
Every day as I reach for that magical moment so long ago, I am transformed, enlivened and gratified. I can truly say, there is nothing I find more rewarding than creating with nature!
Jessica Spencer
Nice to meet you! I'm Jess.
Gardening gives me a sense of peace I rarely find elsewhere in my chaotic life. Being in the garden helps me feel close to God. I’m Jessica, the wife of a loving and encouraging husband, Chris, the mother of a glorious, energetic, rainbow 4-year-old daughter, Ellie, and a work-from-home entrepreneur. I’m that person that gets lost in the garden center and I usually have dirt under my fingernails. My grandmother used to love to tell the story that my first word was “flower” out in her front yard garden in Brooklyn, NY.
My family and I live on a 1.4 acre floor irrigated little homestead, which happens to have been built in a 50-year-old grapefruit orchard. When I was much younger, my grandmother and I named a small flower garden in our backyard Ardenelli’s. I can’t recall how we came up with the name, but it has stayed with me all these years and we decided that Ardenelli Farms was the perfect name for our bit of paradise.
Nature is a marvelous teacher of patience and perseverance, especially in the desert.
I’ve tried and failed and cut corners and had to fix them multiple times. It’s exciting to see what nature can do both with and without me. I love the principles of permaculture and strive to make our property regenerative, not just sustainable. We harvest rainwater from our roof to water the garden and trees in between flood irrigation and we are growing grape vines on trellises up the west side of our house to keep it cooler in the summer. We try to come up with creative ways to use what our property gives us, which, by weight, is definitely grapefruit! We use what falls to the ground for compost and have several different experiments to find the best way to turn them back into food for our trees. We also experiment in the kitchen with grapefruit juice, cupcakes, marmalade, liquor, preserves, and most famously and deliciously, grapefruit margaritas!
Aside from the grapefruit, we also grow a variety of fruit trees (tropicals, stone fruits, figs, pomegranates, avocados, mulberries and more) in ground and in pots. We also grow vegetables in ground and in raised beds. We recently partnered with a local beekeeper to keep two hives on our property and will have chickens soon, too!
In this gardening adventure, we are always striving to make healthier eating choices, and it’s so much more fun to grow and eat interesting fruits and vegetables you can’t find at the store. I so enjoy watching my daughter’s eyes light up when we walk out the back door and eat something new. My greatest hope is to be able to share a love and respect for nature with my daughter and enjoy life to fullest sharing my passion with others.
