Planning

It's mid July and everything in the garden is officially dead. Well, okay, not everything. The tomato plants are still trying to pump out some fruit and for some reason or other, our eggplant is especially prolific. There are a few scraggly looking carrots and a head of red sail lettuce trying to eke out an existence in the shade of our pomegranate tree. We have peppers, most of which are too hot to eat but will be tasty after I pickle them. I suppose there is still life out there. But as I skim other blogs whose summer gardens are drowning in prosperity, I can't help but feel a tad envious. While the rest of the country is really just starting to enjoy the summer bounty, the desert sun has baked our garden into oblivion.

The last of the tomatoes

This is of course is normal for this time of year. We plant when everyone else is still frozen and snow covered but our summer season ends when everyone else's is just beginning. However, we do get to garden year round. Our harvest season may be a little wonky compared to everyone else's but at least we get to garden nine months out of the year!

As I mourn for my scorched squash plants, I am thinking ahead to  the fall. We can plant our winter garden in mid September, sometimes earlier depending on the heat. Since we started this whole garden adventure, we have been planting a mix of seeds and established plants. This winter, we want to go hard core: start it all from seed. We want to start them inside, give them a chance to grow in the relative comfort of our garage, and then transplant them when the time comes. To ensure they are hardy enough for life in the great outdoors, we should have our seeds started by......yesterday. Oops!

Our "its easy, you can't fail!" starter system

Well, we've got all the stuff. The seeds. The planters. The water. The sun. The only thing left to do is plant the little suckers. We've had good intentions in the past but usually ended up at the local nursery buying up their starts. But not this year. Oh no. This year it's on....