GARDENING WITH VEGIE VIC
Mary Mary Quite Contrary
How does your garden survive
The wind, the heat, the pests how they test
Our veggies ability to survive
Yet I have found one can grow almost anything in the desert sand in San Felipe, Baja California Mexico. So far the only things I have tried and failed at is ginger, turmeric root and lavender.
My thriving abundant successes have been 3 types of kale, spinach, chard, collards, many varieties of lettuce, beets, carrots, cilantro, basil, mint, tomatoes, cucumbers, tatsoi, jalapenos, lemon grass, pole beans, nasturtiums, violas, marigolds, petunias and statice. Most all from seed except petunias and starice and lemongrass from the local nurseries. Also from seed and now thriving are Moringa and pink pepper trees.
When we first arrived at our home we built a shade house over a large raised bed that we had built. This made it possible to grow food and flowers almost year round except for August and September where everything including us struggle to cope. It keeps most pests out like rabbits, birds, cats and dogs and it reduces wind impact. The Jiminy crickets became a problem as they love the first green leaves of seedlings so I put sticky traps around and sprayed with neem oil. The little lizards can crawl under anything as they love a nice moist shady smorgasbord but luckily they are interested in the bugs which seem plentiful in this desert environment.
A couple years ago I created 9 tire gardens for more garden space without having to build another raised bed. I cleaned them thoroughly, cut off the rims and painted them with random leftover paint, then placed them for the right exposure depending on plant variety. I filled with sand, compost, bags of dirt from the local nurseries and horse manure from the equine center. These tire gardens are so easily maintained, cheap and no pests except aphids on greens bother them. You can use pvc pipe or sticks around the edges and create little greenhouses or shade houses. The same goes for big beautiful container gardens.
BTW the first year here I used only sand to start my seedlings with great success and I didn’t know better anyway. This sand has a lot of nutrients from being an old sea bed so I always add new sand, compost and organic matter when augmenting the soil for the next crop.
