Fighting the inevitable

If this picture were at all legible you'd see I'm doing it again~fighting the nature that seems to follow me. As many of you know, I have a brown thumb. I have a hard time growing things, and in fact even managed to kill my Chia herb garden, which apparently 2 year olds have no trouble at all with. Ken worked so hard last year to make a garden "box" for me with some cinder blocks (material of choice here in AZ) and we planted tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, and strawberries. We didn't get one bite of food from all that work. (I think we burned the plants with too much fertilizer.) But I know other people grow food out here so I'm trying again. Today Adam helped me make a second box and we're going to go get some plants. I even want to get a meyer lemon tree, which I've heard grows really well here. It's silly to pay a lot for lemons when I'm in sunshine heaven. I'm willing to try this even though I/we killed both dwarf, seedless, specialty orange trees we were given by Ken's brother, Roland. He is so successful with those trees and was so sweet to get us some...he'd come to visit and shove past us and run to the back yard to see the trees. I felt so horrible the time he came and we had to share the bad news. I would love an orange tree, too, but really want a seedless, dwarf tree like the ones Roland has.

You may notice that our back yard doesn't exactly have a plush lawn leading up to the garden, either. Having grown up in PA I just figured that grass comes with a house. Now I know better if you build a new home, even there you have to plant grass. But here, we spoke with a landscaper who wanted $6000 to do a sprinkler system and grass. That's American dollars. Grass! And that's just the back yard, which is about 80' by 50'. We're not talking acreage here. We can do it but just haven't yet, and we've lived here almost 7 years. I kill Chia herb gardens, I doubt I'll be involved in that project.

Anyway, if you read this and have gardening tips for the state of Arizona, specifically Phoenix, please let me know. Websites, etc, are all helpful. Yes, I can google, but there are so many sites that are nonsense, I need the good ones! Something that gives me hope is this beautiful little strawberry some lucky person will have the chance to taste in a day or two when it's ready. These 2 strawberry plants survived the harsh summer and all winter here, too, and started producing fruit so I have hope!




Wish me luck...