A Garden in the Desert

The soil in Nevada doesn't make it all that conducive for gardening, but I was bound and determined to give it a try. My loving husband :o) happily obliged by drawing it all out and building the frames for me. We decided to make it an above ground garden since the soil in the desert is full of sand, clay and rock. The space on the side of the house is rather small but it was all we had to work with so it will have to do. Bill built two frames out of wood. We worked on moving the rocks out of there for a few weeks and had to buy a new wheelbarrow to move the rocks to a different spot in the backyard. We bought some special organic soil designed for above ground beds. After the frames were in place we decided to make it a little nicer by putting pavers around the area so it's a bit more comfortable to kneel down instead of on a bunch of rocks. After all of the soil was put into the beds, I planted the seedlings. The workers at Star Nursery and Home Depot explained that it is too late in the year to start from seed so we went straight to the plants. I decided to make one bed with all herbs in it. I planted a few kinds of parsley, cilantro, basil, and rosemary. The other planter has four pepper plants, five tomato plants and many sweet onion bulbs planted on the side.

If nothing else, this whole thing has been an adventure. I'll count myself a success if I get one vegetable out of this and an herb or two to use for cooking. Now if I can only remember to water the thing!