I’ll try and figure out how to migrate some of the content to the new pages if I can.

This photo is after just a couple of 15 minute sessions. I have a piece of black shade cloth over the green house frame to help shade my bedroom window until the morning glories take over the job.

The potatoes planted recently have mostly sprouted so I have begun mulching the open spaces between them. Not every piece planted has sprouted yet, which is ok, they should all make an appearance eventually.

I just try not to put a lot of mulch over the ones that haven’t come up yet.

Since I’m going on vacation in August & September I’m trying hard not to plant too much stuff that will need a lot of attention. But I did decided to plant some Apache Purple Pod beans. These make nice green beans, shelly beans and dried beans.

First I dug a good size trench next to the trellis and watered it well. The ground is very very dry and I’m trying to get moisture to the root zone.

After the water soaked in I made the trench even deeper and set out the bean seeds.

I then watered them in and covered them with about an inch of soil by directing the water to the side of the trench so the soil would wash down over the seeds. I then used  old screens to cover them to try and protect them as best I can from the birds. Right now the desert is very dry and the birds will dig up and eat any little green sprout they can find. June is a very difficult month to start any kind of seeds directly in the garden for that reason.

But with a great deal of effort and determination that small space has done something really really amazing. In 2010 that ONE TENTH of an acre,( just .1) produced 7,030 pounds of fruits and vegetables! WOW! NO GMO crop could possibly do that! NO Chemical Company can produce those kinds of yields in modern American Agriculture in any way shape or form! They do not even come close!

BECAUSE in PER ACRE amounts it totals: 70,300 pounds. No current big farm agriculture can possibly produce 35 TONS of fruits and veggies on an acre of land!

NOW, imagine if every person that could possibly do this, would do it. Where ever they live. Even if they didn’t manage these ginormous yields, but just think if every one grew their own salad, potatoes and green beans?

Think of how beautiful our cities would become with all that green. Think of how much pollution of all sorts would be reduced. How about whole city blocks of people getting together and landscaping the whole neighborhood together, with everyone sharing the produce of the different trees? That alone would be priceless.

One of the things America has surely lost in most places: a sense of place, of belonging, a local food system, a sense of caring and community. This is a way of beginning to get it back.

The Dervaes family have a number of websites, all of which you can access from this link.

Now around here, it is hotter than blazes and half the state of AZ seems like it is burning up with no rain or let up in sight. So I will dream of fall and winter and early next spring….hopefully the next pea crop will be as good as this ones was:

I might put a tub of water over across the creek for them or something, just to help keep them out of the yard.

In the meantime I’ve been having a wonderful read over at Gene Logsdon’s blog; awesome fella, I’ve been reading him almost as long as he’s been writing. Bought a few seeds the other day and cleaned out one of my seed boxes this afternoon. I really am trying not to go whole hog on the garden but my fingers are itching to be in the dirt.

So I planted about 3 luffa seeds, a few red sunflower seeds and some snapdragons. That shouldn’t get me into too much trouble. I planted them in some soil blocks and set them in the kitchen to keep the birds and chipmunks out of them while they sprout up.

Mule Deer

These four authors have done more to shape my thinking and my gardening than almost any others, except perhaps Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain and Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. Perhaps I will write about them another day.

You can read my review at My Gardening Heroes

On another note, the potatoes are sprouting.

The potatoes are sprouting

I have also written an article about potatoes, Growing Potatoes.

sprouting potatoes

This morning I planted most of the plants into their pots. I also did a quick tidy up around the front steps where they will live. This spot gets plenty of early morning sun and a bit of late afternoon shade; perfect for so many things in the desert.

a yellow daylily and some lobelia

Ran to the store for groceries and picked up a few flowers and some herbs for the pots around the front steps; that will be tomorrow mornings project, so more pictures tomorrow.

have fun and be safe!