sweet and juicy persimmons - make excellent salsa, too.

Just because we live in Arizona, where scorching heat is a plenty, and rain is scarce, doesn’t mean we are unable to enjoy organic gardening.  Particularly now that organic vegetables are not only expensive but very limited, and some varieties are hard to find because of modern agriculture in which vegetables are grown for their appearance, shelf-life, and not for their taste and nutrients, these babies are delicious and refreshing treat. For example, the freshly ripened figs have only a shelf-life of 3 days and bruise easily on shipment, and so you rarely see these in the market. Yet, they taste mightily awesome especially when eaten fresh. I don’t care though for the dried ones and the fig newton cookies, which are considered processed figs. Nothing can really beat tree-ripened fruits, more so if they are raised from your own garden.

Earlier, in one of my blog posts, I explained methodically the mechanics on how to build a raised bed for those of you who may be interested. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t hard either. It involves cunning and hardwork, lots of hauling gravel, dirt, manure, and hays. Results are phenomenal as show in the pictures below.

We expect to have an all-year-round gardening even on the harsh winter days this year. Yes, we do get snow as it can get down to zero here, but the good thing is, it warms up during the day time which is essential to growing plants. Right now, we are using a 40% to 50% shade cloth to cut down the heat because most plants simply can’t bear sweltering heat of Arizona. Eventually, when the weather gets colder and below freezing point, we will replace the shade with the plastic cover, which will then resemble a green house. Of course, we had to carefully select the cold-tolerant plants like kale, lettuces, radicchio, and many more. It is like a trial and error to see which ones grow best in our climate. We did this before many many years ago, and I remember having supply of organic salad in the cold winter months. You can’t beat that, right?

Anyway, without further ado, let me show you our garden.

chard- eat your heart out guys.

carrots

this bed supplies us with fresh veggies every other day, and now and then, to some of my friends.

one of my favorite vegetables- spinach

Chinese lettuce ready for harvest by end of October

there are probably 15 kinds of veggies planted in this bed which has inside dimensions of 32 feet by 4.4 feet.