Gardening In The High Desert

I think you should try container gardening; you can have fruits, vegetables, and flowers growing in containers year round. Check with your local library for the best things to grow in the desert. I have been able to grow cherry tomatoes, lemons, oranges, squash, strawberry, gardenia, roses, bulbs, etc., in containers in Southern California when I lived in apartments. You can buy the seeds, trees, etc., on line with excellent results. I hope this helps. Good Luck.

I live in the southern part of Arizona. We cannot even dig in the soil, as it is like cement. We have only cacti. I would suggest going to the nursary, and checking with them what would be best for your area and the sun situation. All cacti should work well. Barrel cacti are lovely, blooming with that lovely flower on top, like a crown.

Grow some flowers my friend and spread love.

Desert? That´s great planting soil for many exotic plants.

I´d suggest digging a hole in the sand, putting 2-3 plastic bags in the hole then covering it´s walls (and the plastic water-proofing) with cement. Then fill it halfway with sand, then water, and plant Papyrus, beautiful plant, and very easy to make seedlings out of them (when a papyrus head touches the water for too long a new papyrus grows out of it. Some info on it can be found here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_papyrus

There is a beatiful flowerful cacti here caled "Christ´s crown" which also grow beatuful, with lot of bright red flowers, and spreads fast along desert soil, and being very spiky, make for great decoration (and security) around the house walls (more info on it can be found here-
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphorbia_millii

Good luck with your plnating, post some pics of your garden after you finish!

Can you not grow your herbs indoors? You could get a strawberry pot, fill it partially full of potting soil, and then poke lots of holes into the smallest bottle of water that you can find and place it (without the lid of course)on top of the soil just so the bottle opening is going to be reachable for watering purposes.
Go to the greenhouse or nursery and get as many herb plants as you have holes in the pot. Do not get anything in the mint family unless you can plant them in a very small plastic pot within the pot - they will completely take over.
Gently ease your plant babies into the holes in the strawberry pot and work some more soil around them. For the top hole I would place a tall herb such as lavender or rosemary.
Remember, the more you cut and use your herbs, the more they will grow. You can also do all of your watering through the end of the water bottle so there will be no huge mess!
You don't have to limit this to herbs, MissK, you can plant any kind of flowers you want to in there as well.
I hope you are able to do this and can enjoy them in your home. I am getting ready to start my seedlings some time next week - Donna

My mom used to live in Phoenix-- she used to add a whole slew of ornamental peppers (some edible ones, too) for color. They do require a bit of attention and water, to get going. There are also certain kinds of rosemary and thyme that do well in fairly arid conditions-- some varietals are more prone to flowering than others, and set blue flowers.

Tomatoes do really well in this area, as do peppers, and zucchinis are absurdly thrilled with the climate and soil. We had six zucchini plants that each put off at least ten or twelve gigantic zucchinis a couple of years ago. The Collier family used to do pumpkins and corn and squash out on Road 5 North, along with hay. I'm not sure if that'll be happening this year, since they may have sold the place.

As for herbs, I love the strawberry pot suggestion so much that I'm going to run out and get me one next week. I'll put cilantro in it, because I hate buying huge bundles just for a little bit of it, and probably some fresh basil, too. And maybe I'll get bold enough to try taming the mint--it used to be easy to find out by Indian Creek, and I've been meaning to head out that way for a while. Anything I plant in the strawberry pot can keep my onions company in the spare bedroom.:)

Hi I have also liked to add some green and color to my yard. I live in New Mexico which is probably pretty similar to Arizona soil wise. Here is a website I have found on plants that can thrive in our type of soil www.avant-gardening.com/newmexico.html Good luck I would love to hear how this works out for you. I haven't gotten brave enough to try planting outside yet.

Buy wet soil and irrigate it the soil.