You pick Garden Market.

That is right I am allowing people to come visit my community garden plot and choose their produce.

The garden is just off the freeway at the Scottsdale Garden Club Garden.

1. Over 75 different pepper plants.
2. 24 Tomato Plants.

Call Me At 480-7039628

Delicious, OMEGA RICH EGGS!

We plant lots of extra greens in our garden to feed to the chickens. They love it. The greens add to the nutrient density and quality of the eggs. Unlike commercial chickens, our eggs are lower in bad cholestrol and higher in OMEGA FATS, this is because we are chickens eat a lower diet of corn. The greens are organically grown in remineralized soil. Enjoy.

BEST VIDEO YET!!! 720sq foot Garden

Tell me how you guys like the lighting, sound, content.

Video Test

I have been wanting to do a video for awhile but the garden was still in the growing phase. Finally, the garden is worth filming. It is just a test for practice sakes, but I think it is a good first shoot considering I filmed it myself. - BFG

The Herb Garden Cont'd

The lower portion the Herb Bed is planted out with leafy greens. Dino kale inter-planted with leeks. Swiss chard with bunching onions. Cilantro that make the most delicious salsa. More swiss chard, this time planted with carrots. 5 Basil plants. 6 cucumbers - pickling variety and marketmore.

Harvested.

One week after harvest.

Dino kale and leeks. SO DELICIOUS.

The Herb Garden

Each raised bed consists of two sections, and upper and lower. The upper bed was planted out with HALF of a $2 packet of red spring mix, consisting of a red variety of lettuce from the 5 major groups - Butterhead, Crisphead, Looseleaf, Romaine, and Celtuce. We use a bio-intensive gardening method, inter-planted among the lettuce are 3 varieties of radishes and 1 variety of beets.

Just harvested.

One week after harvest. Ready to be cut again.

 

Once a week, regardless of lettuce growth, I cut each lettuce plant back to just one leaf. I prefer to cut the plants this frequently because the lettuce leaves stay smaller, meaning less prep later and 'baby' leaves seem to be more delicious.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing Arizona Fresh - Raised Bed Project

Vegetable Enthusiast and Admirers 

 

There are total of 6 beds, some are slightly longer then the others but the basic size is 4 feet wide by 30 feet long and 3 feet high. Total plantable area is 720 sq feet.

40 Tomato plants

30 Jalapenos

30 Anaheim Chiles

12 Pepperoncinni

60 Lettuces inteplanted with radishes

12 Dino Kale

12 Leeks

24 Swiss Chard

Corn - Full Bed (4ft x 30ft)

Sunflowers for the chickens.

Pineapples

Watermelon

Cataloupe

My planting style is complex. I have adopted a non till square foot method adapted for desert gardens.

 

There are also 12 fruit trees.

Comquat

Almond

2x Plum

2 Avocado

Lime

Orange

Peach - 2 years old

2x Fig

Pear

It has been too long.

BVG realizes that it has been some time since our last post. So to get back into the swing of things, we are doing this 'warm-up' post. ALOT!!(we realize ALOT is spelled A LOT) of things have changed over the past weeks. We are finally up and running at all three gardens. Currently we have nearly 1500 sqft planted out and devoted to vegetables. We have nearly 50 jalapenos plants alone. Stay tuned shortly for pictures and updates. Here are a couple photos of some flowers.

East Raised Bed #2 - Spring 2011



Organic Gardening and Crop Rotation

Crop rotation is the most necessary need for crops to yeild year after year.

1. Pests

2. Allows nutrients to replenish themselves.

3. Plant Disease

This season I have transplated the 'Valentine' Salad Mix from BotanicalInterest. Am using the end of the bed as a seed starting bed. I have moved my pepper plants around the bed for more morning sun and better function of the dead space between the raised bed and the wall.



East Raised Bed #2

Spring 2010 - The Tomatoes (Last Year)


The Story: Free dirt and Raised Bed Construction

Let me start by making a long story short. I was on CL looking for wood to make a raised bed. There was a couple on there that had a raised bed already filled with dirt and they said I could have it for free. (Usually free stuff on CL is dump quality and the people are looking for some sorry sap to haul it away. Little did I know.)

I don't know how many times I was offered free dirt on CL only to find the dirt to be rock hard clay in boulder sized clods. But, these people said they built the soil themselves and it was very good: coconut husk, peat moss, vermiculite, compost. I showed up to the house and the soil is BLACK GOLD. Light, spongy, dark, rich in organic matter. Like most gardeners the people abandon gardening after there first season. The raised bed sat underneath a tree that dropped its leaves that no one bothered to clean up. THANK YOU. The leaves basically broke down and composted into the bed, further adding to its quality. The wood that the bed was constructed from was total crap though.

I went to home depot and bought 2 16ft 2x8, and constructed a 2.5ft x 13.5ft raised bed and filled it with my dirt.



 THE KEY TO MY SUCCESS!!!

Store bought tomato cages will not be sufficient to grow tomatoes in, NOT BY A LONG SHOT! So the key to any tomato gardeners success can be seen in the above picture. HEIGHT. I placed the raised bed just off the roof line. I dropped a line of garden twine off the roof to the bed below. When the tomatoes started to grow I TRAINED them up the line to the roof, giving them all the room to grow as they needed.

The GUINNESS BOOK has a record of a single tomato plant growing to a height of 31 feet.

Dry Farming

–noun

a mode of farming, practiced in regions of slight or insufficient rainfall, that relies mainly on tillage methods rendering the soil more receptive of moisture and on the selection of suitable crops. dictionary.com

Basically, farming that uses strictly rain water.

About 2 months ago, I had a some extra radish seeds that I had nowhere to plant. So I took the seeds - Johnny Apple seed style - and tossed them into my community garden plot expecting nothing to happen. Well yesterday while I was 'weeding' I found these. My watering system is not on at the plot so these radishes grew strictly from rain water... In Arizona... I don't believe that this was some type of random miracle, over the last year I have seen that with a little of the right kind of effort, plants need very little water to grow.



Water Footprint of Food

-The number of gallons needed to grow a single pound of food.

Lettuce -- 15 gallons;
Tomatoes -- 22 gallons;
Cabbage -- 24 gallons;
Cucumber -- 28 gallons;
Potatoes -- 30 gallons;
Oranges -- 55 gallons;
Apples -- 83 gallons;
Bananas -- 102 gallons;
Corn -- 107 gallons;
Peaches or Nectarines -- 142 gallons;
Wheat Bread -- 154 gallons;
Mango -- 190 gallons;
Avocado -- 220 gallons;
Tofu -- 244 gallons;
Groundnuts -- 368 gallons;
Rice -- 403 gallons;
Olives -- 522 gallons;
Chocolate -- 2847 gallons;

Eggs -- 573 gallons;
Chicken -- 815 gallons;
Cheese -- 896 gallons;
Pork -- 1630 gallons;
Butter -- 2044 gallons;
Beef -- 2500-5000 gallons;!!!!!!!!!!!

Ol' Red Bess Lays the BLUE EGG!!!!

 EGGs!

I thought my White Americana gave me the blue egg. So today when I got home - no eggs in the lay boxes - I let the chickens out but Ol' Red just chills in the cage, then she jumps into the box. When she comes out I go check. There it was the blue egg! Still warm, having just been laid. So i cracked it right there straight into my mouth, DELICIOUS!! Just kidding.

So right now I get 4 distinctly different eggs. BLUE. GREEN. BIG BROWN. And little brown or PINK, however I think there are two small pink layers. Yesterday, was my first 5 EGG DAY(2 blues)!!!

3rd West Bed

Last Year

Last year I had spring mix closest to the street/side walk, this year I have an artichoke plant. Hopefully an artichoke is hearty enough to curb any destruction by my inconsiderate neighbors and their dogs.

Also, I had dozens of random tomato plants sitting around my house. I regretfully put them in the ground. They have all out grown their cages and its not even warm. I may attempt to try and string the plants off my neighbors tree.

This Year



TOMATO TIME

Gardener's Delight

Gardener's Delight



PEPPER HARVEST

FEELIN HOT HOT HOT





I couldn't take it anymore. All my plants were loaded with peppers. So I picked every last one.






Although, some of the peppers are not store bought size, getting peppers to flower and fruit is nearly all the battle. Now I just need to work on feeding the plant once they fruit.

West Raised Bed #2

The Pepper Bed

Jalapeno - Pepperoncini - Poblano

'What I Eat' is always the motivation behind 'What I plant'. So I planted JALAPENOS for my GARDEN FRESH SALSA and PEPPERONCINI for my sandwiches and POBLANO for my stuffed chilies.



PICKLING PEPPERONCINI

I took the juice from an empty jar of PEPPERONCINI and brought it to a boil. I stuffed PEPPERONCINIs from my garden into the jar and poured the liquid on top.