The beginning

I've created this blog as a place to keep track of my experiences (good and bad) trying to grow vegetables in the desert. The first time we tried to garden here was last year and that was a complete disaster. The first problem was the soil here is so bad that nothing wants to grow. The second problem was that the dogs got in and dug everything up. I think the only thing we harvested was two or three radishes. This year I've put up a better gate to the garden area and also we're trying raised bed gardening and also using square foot gardening to maximize the crop.

On May 9th I put everything together a 4' x 8' raised garden box, got the soil in the box, marked the squares and planted everything. Here's a picture of what I got done that day.

The soil is made up of 9 cubic feet of garden soil, 9 cubic feet of compost 5 cubic feet of steer manure. I also put a weed barrier under the soil.

The veggies that we planted were corn, okra, carrots, radishes, bean, peas, cucumbers, cantaloupe and peppers. (the peppers are the ones that were transplanted in the bottom right corner)

After all this we watered everyday and on May 21st this how everything looks. Out of everything that was planted, only the peas, beans, the cantaloupe and two of the corn seeds haven't germinated.
Here are some closer pictures of how everything is doing.


The cucumbers

The radishes

The okra









The corn









As you can see everything is starting to grow and is looking pretty good. The only things missing are the watermelons and pumpkins. I'm thinking about creating another raised garden box. In this box I want to plant the watermelons, the pumpkins and maybe some herbs.