Page 17 - summer book

GARDENING WITH VEGIE VIC

by Vicki Fisk
Mary Mary Quite Contrary
How does your garden survive
The wind, the heat, the pests how they test
Our veggies ability to survive
I have found one can grow almost anything in the desert
sand in San Felipe. So far the only things I have tried
and failed at are 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 ex-
cept petunias, 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 envi-
ronment. A couple years ago I created 9 tire gardens
for more garden space without having to build anoth-
er 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.