Gardening in the desert: An overview

The harvest 8/13/12; cucumbers, yellow pear and Roma tomatoes and a few Anaheim peppers.

I've briefly mentioned my garden here.  As you know, I live in Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada!tm  which is located in the center of the Mojave desert.  Desert, as in dry and hot desert.  Dry. And. Hot.   Right now its been ~110F in the shade during the day and cooling down to a chilly 89F at night.  So it may come as a surprise that I have a booming fruit and vegetable garden.  
 
Most fruits and vegetables do very well here in the heat of summer, particularly tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons.  Root vegetables such as onions, turnips, carrots and potatoes do well early in the year and the cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage grow over winter.  Leafy greens like lettuce, spinach and all of the hard greens (kale, mustard, endive) can be grown in the early spring.  Fruit and nut trees are also successful--we have a dwarf lime and an apricot tree, and as previously mentioned, my parents have a very productive fig.  If nothing else, herbs can be grown year round;  people use rosemary bushes for landscaping!

30% shade cloth

Of course there are a few tricks to make a garden successful.  While we have no risk of flooding, drought and heat are an intrinsic part of life here.  What's the secret?  Irrigation of course.  But very frugal irrigation; in the heat of the summer we water for 3 minutes at 7am, 1pm, and 7 pm using a low water drip system.  Another necessity is shade cloth.  Here in the valley a 30% shade weave is recommended--you can buy it precut or in bulk.  I'm cheaper than lazy, so I buy in bulk and cut to fit.

The western half of my raised garden in our backyard with shade cloth in place.  From left to right you can see Roma, bush beans, cucumbers fining, bell peppers, more beans, Brandywine and finally the massive yellow pear tomato falling over the wall.  In the far right is my dwarf lime tree.  And yes, it's 110F right now.

It is also very important to choose the vegetable and fruit varieties that are suited to hot dry weather.  For example, while very meaty dense varieties of tomatoes are high producers (Roma, pear, cherry and grape), Beefsteak varieties wither and don't produce worth a darn. 

Earthworm romance

Fertilizing the very alkaline soil of the desert isn't too difficult.  The most magic ingredient is epsom salts used judiciously.  We also have a home composter (I'll talk about this in another entry) that doubles as an earthworm farm.  I can't tell you how excited I was this spring when we were tilling up the soil and discovered several earthworms (and a few earthworm pieces--oops) in the garden bed.

I'm going to sign off for now and go for a swim.  Next time well make use of some of those tomatoes, peppers, herbs, onions and limes in a bruschetta
topping and some homemade Pico de Gallo relish.

Farming in Iowa is an entirely different endeavor from desert gardening,   Harry Meyers (My Great Grandfather) and the mules.