Growing a vegetable garden in the southwest is different than growing anywhere else in the United States. The temperatures during the summer months stay well above 100 degrees both day and night and there is relatively little to no humidity. It takes work to have a successful vegetable garden, but it can be done if you know a few simple things.
Growing a Vegetable Garden in the Southwest
Knowing when to grow certain plants is key to growing a veggie garden in the southwest. If you open up most gardening books they tell you not to plant until after Mother’s Day. While that is true for the high desert areas, if you wait that long in the lower desert areas you won’t get anything to grow and you will become frustrated fast. There are two main growing seasons in the desert Southwest and the first one starts mid-February until the end of May and then again mid to late September once temperatures are below a 100 degrees until early December.
In the first growing season you can plant all your typical summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, corn, winter and summer squash, cucumbers and eggplant. You can start them indoors from seed at the beginning of January and then transplant the seedlings the first of February. It still can get cold and typically there is a last chance of frost that hits sometime in March after weeks of sunshine. As long as you cover your plants those few days, they should do fine.
The second growing season in the fall is when you want to plant all your cool-season vegetables. Some of the ones that do great are spinach, loose-leaf lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, Kale, and Swiss Chard. If it is still really hot in September, start from seeds indoors where there is air conditioning. Once the temperatures stay in the 90s or below you can start to think of transplanting them to your garden. The cool season plants will do best in late October and you can start harvesting your lettuce and spinach in a couple weeks and the other vegetables by late November.
Some plants will try to survive year round. Tomatoes love the springtime in the southwest, go dormant in the summer and then seem to come back to life in the fall. Peppers can be grown like perennials, they will set fruit year after year giving you enough peppers to share with your neighbors. Pumpkins grow great in the southwest and should be planted in July to have them ready for the fall.
It is best to have a drip irrigation system to water your vegetable garden and an underground one is even better so that all the water doesn’t evaporate right away. During the summer, water deeply and in the early morning hours is best. If your garden receives direct Eastern sun, put a shade cloth up to help protect the plants. You can also plant corn on that side as a natural sun protector.
The soil in the southwest often has a lot of clay and needs to be amended with compost each time you change out the plants. After you have your vegetable garden in, put more compost down so that you are enriching the soil and giving much needed nutrients to your veggies. Growing a vegetable garden in the southwest can be a fun and rewarding experience as long as you know when to plant your favorite veggies!
More Vegetable Growing Tips:
Tips for Growing Heirloom Tomatoes
Tips for Growing Gourmet Lettuces
Tips for Growing Pepper Plants
Secrets of Growing Summer Squash
10 Tips for Growing Larger Onions
Kristi Trimmer is currently running half marathons across the U.S. and blogging about her journey. At the beginning of 2012 she couldn’t run across the parking lot and in 2013 she ran 10 half marathons. Follow her journey on DragonflyRunning.com as she shares her running adventures and helps to motivate others to make positive life changes that include eating healthy and having fitness be a part of the lives and not a dirty little word.
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