I am thrilled to share some more about my garden this October – one of my favorite months second only to March here in the low desert. Ardenelli Farms was affectionately named after a small flower garden my grandmother “Nonna” and I named when I was really young.
Ardenelli farms is a 1.5 acre property on a county island in Gilbert, AZ covered in mature (50+ year old) pink grapefruit trees. We have a vegetable garden, primarily in raised beds, and a large variety of (non-grapefruit) fruit trees.
We are home to three bee hives and recently added some chickens to our little homestead – they add a great deal of character on top of the other benefits (eggs, eating bugs, awesome poop). The ladies are affectionately named Lucy, Ethel, Freda, Nancy, Penny, Harriet, and Marilyn.
What is gardening to you?
To me, I want to add as much life as possible on my little piece of this (desert) Earth. Gardening is being outside and getting my hands dirty without my phone or computer (which I am constantly tied to for work). Gardening is making things beautiful, being close to God, and just being there, in the moment. And copious amounts of food!
How did your garden adventure begin?
My parents had a vegetable garden growing up in NY. Our neighbor brought a load of horse manure over and I remember just tilling up a giant rectangle of dirt and things grew. When my husband and I bought our first house, we gave up most of our yard to a vegetable garden with raised beds. We learned a lot about what NOT to do gardening in the desert. But from there, a real love and passion grew for both of us.
What changes have you made that have been really impactful?
Wow, a lot.
- Caring for soil. I’ll admit, I didn’t really know a lot about how to care for soil in the beginning so we used the synthetic fertilizer pellets on our fruit trees and grape vines. I don’t feel like we ever adequately fertilized our garden boxes (be it with natural or organic material). Now we use all kinds of organic material – wood chips, chicken poop, compost, worm castings, seaweed emulsion, humic acid, and worms. I think about how awesome the soil is in a natural forest and try to replicate that as best I can in the desert. Wood chips everywhere!
- Proper irrigation here in the desert. We started with little drip lines for everything, including trees. Now we know trees need less frequent but deeper water, etc.
- Composting. We sucked at composting in the beginning – meaning I tried and it just never really worked. Now we let large piles of wood chips sit in the shade and get flood irrigation to break down into compost. I also compost some food scraps and am trying a cylinder made from chicken wire and landscape fabric and the 3’x3’x3’ rule.
- Raised bed size. After our first desert garden, we learned you have to make raised beds large enough so they don’t boil, bake, or dry out in the summer.
What do you enjoy growing?
Everything that grows. I know that is maybe unfair, but anytime something grows well – vegetables, a fruit tree, flowers, I feel an immense amount of pride.
I especially love growing fruit trees because you plant it once and, if cared for, you get better and better returns each year. Figs, stone fruit, and citrus are my favorites. Citrus is still such a special and exotic thing to be able to grow, coming from the East coast.
I also love herbs because fresh herbs really make the meal sometimes.
What do you want other gardeners to know about your garden?
For every success we’ve had, we’ve had about 100 failures. We like to experiment and a lot of times it doesn’t work. But I hope that what new gardeners take from that is to keep trying. Don’t beat yourself up if something dies. The desert is a hard place at first, but if you start with the right foundation (healthy soil, the correct microclimate, proper watering) you will have success.
What are your biggest gardening challenges?
This last spring and summer it was definitely pests. The squash bugs and cucumber beetles were incessant. If I didn’t go out every single day to squish and spray off leaves, we lost entire plants.
I also find tropicals very frustrating. When I first learned about all the tropical trees you could grow here, we jumped in a little naively. They are so much work to care for, especially in the winter.
Also, bermuda grass. It is a constant battle. If I let one area go without trimming it up it jumps in and takes over…seemingly forever.
What are your biggest successes?
Our spring 2019 garden, despite the pests, was beautiful. We had trellises with melons and squash climbing everywhere, basil as big as trees, gorgeous tomatoes that lasted well into the summer.
The 5 pound TR Hovey papayas we harvested this past spring. They were so delicious, enormous, and fun to share.
Over thirty pounds of both butternut squash and spaghetti squash from volunteer plants in our compost.
Not killing every single avocado tree.
Any tips to share with others?
Aside from our gardening commandments here at Gardening in the Desert (soil, microclimates, and watering), I’d like to share these tips:
- Grow what you love to eat. It takes time, effort, and patience to have a thriving garden. Focus on the things you really love eating because it will be that much more motivating to care for plants.
- Keep it fun. Sometimes my husband and I will get in a tiff over exactly what or how to plant something. We have to take a step back and laugh – this is supposed to be fun, not work. I guess, keep this in mind too with pets and kids. My daughter picked so many gorgeous, but underripe, tomatoes last year I wanted to cry, But we still had more than enough to share, so there was no use getting upset.
- Embrace the gardening community. Gardeners are some of the most generous, friendly, and helpful people you will ever meet.
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