Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When it started out it looked we were going to have the best garden in years. Beans and tomato plants grew fast and full. Good color, lots of buds. Squash, peppers, the same way.
Then it got hot and no rain. We tried to water the plants but we dont have an irrigation system.
It seemed like mother nature turned off the growing switch. It was the worst garden we've had in years. Really wasn't even worth the plantng and weeding for what we got.
I think for our garden it did well. This is the first garden in several years that we had, and overall, we're pleases. We got plent of cucumbers, beans, snap peas, and tomatoe's. Our pepper plants...did okay probably would have grown bigger peppers if our youngest wouldnt pull them off and ate them. lol. but it was a joy watching her with the garden, so we didnt say anything.
We did pretty good. I think the high temperatures cut down on the tomato crop but we still had more than we could eat. Zucchinis were plentiful. We avoided the blight so that was good. Right now we have a few surprise butternut squash growing and am still picking a few small late ripe tomatoes with a few bigger ones that are turning. Peppers seemed to grow better later in the season.
I want to plant lettuce and spinach but have to wait until the last of the tomatoes ripen and i remove the plants, probably in a week or so. I hope it gets a chance to grow before we get an early frost( which i think we'll get by October 1st).
It was a rough start for us this spring as it heated up so fast. My broccoli & spinach didn't make it. The tomato production was low also this year. But my egg plants, bell peppers, long bean, zucchinis, and other peppers (thai & serrano) more than made up for it.
I plan to take down my tomato & long beans too to make room for the fall crops.
This was my first experience gardening in Phoenix and it was terrible. My last garden (in Anaheim, CA) was amazing, but the soil in Phoenix is very poor. So, we decided to try an above-ground garden and several small containers.
I planted small plants (from garden store) in the above-ground garden that included spinach, one tomato plant, two bell peppers and one snap pea plant. Within 7 days of planting, we got several days of non-stop rain. From what I've read, this is probably what ruined my tomatoes as they appeared to have blight (my first experience with blight). The spinach did great and off of four plants, we had several meals of them. THe snap peas were awesome as well.
I've always read that peppers do well in heat, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong. First off, just as the fruit are about to mature, the birds get to them, peck a small hole in them and eat out all the seeds. I've tried tin foil pinwheels throughout the bed but that didn't help. Now I've got them covered. I had several peppers in containers that never produced at all (Anaheims, Poblanos, Bells). I did get a few banana peppers.
My herbs in containers did great including chives, and rosemary which are still going strong. I planted basil in the ground (actually, I dumped a packet of expired seed in my planter and they grew into the most beautiful basil I've ever had).
This will be my first year in Phoenix planting exclusively from seed. I've got a variety of lettuce, peas, spinach, and cilantro to try. I'm giving up on the peppers and tomatoes (so heartbreaking to put so much work in only to have the birds ruin them in one day).
The herbs have been the only thing that really THRIVED for me this year, hoping they make it through winter indoors under growlights.
I hope yours do well this winter, I am getting ready to plant round 3 for herbs, I can usually get 3 growing seasons per year.
Funny thing though, its still supposed to be the wet season here, its dry already.-sigh-
Does anyone know if you can take the big green tomatoe's that havent turned yet and put them in the window sill or something?
Yes you can through that window they will get enough sun to ripen also you can put them in a brown paper bag in a dark area of a room and they will also ripen . good luck .
Actually what I was told and have done is to put the tomatoes in a paper bag or better yet a flat box and cover with newspaper in a coolish room if possible. This worked great for me last year--I had about 3 flats ripen at all different times. Good luck and hope this helps.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
