I absolutely hated gardening when I was a kid.
But, my parents approached gardening a lot different than how I approach gardening.
My parents grew food for necessity. My dad tilled a large plot of land located 20 yards away from our house, and planted it with row after row after row of corn, beans, peas and tomatoes.
As a kid, I had zero interest in plucking hornworms off tomato plants and smashing them between bricks, or crawling around on my hands and knees and plucking weeds out from around mounds of pumpkin leaves. I hated the laborious process of shucking corn and peas for canning and I hated the taste of canned tomatoes.
But, as an adult, I’ve come to love gardening. I have a very manageable raised garden bed located in our tiny apartment side yard, and I take great joy in spending my early spring weeks deciding what crops to plant and when to cultivate them.
I’m still very much a novice gardener. This is only my third season gardening here in Flagstaff! During my first gardening season back in 2022, I planted “a little of a lot.” I used the square foot gardening method to sow 12 different vegetables so I could see what worked and what didn’t.
I did a little more of the same during my second year gardening. Last year, I replanted the things that grew really well during the 2022 season, and gave one more attempt to the things that didn’t do so well my first season.
Which brings us to this year! I spent last month looking at the past two seasons and planning out my garden for this summer.
I’ve talked a little bit before about the woes of gardening in Flagstaff: We have surprise frosts well into May and October. Summer lows are low and summer highs are high. We have droughts and monsoons and — of course — my garden tends to suffer from a bit of neglect come fire season.
I’m planning on planting some successes from the past two ears: zucchini, pole beans, snap peas and chard.
I’m also trying a few new things that I’ve heard grow well here in Flagstaff: summer squash, radishes, shishito peppers, poblano peppers and — my first non-vegetable — strawberries!
I ordered my summer squash, radish and pepper seed packets from Rare Seeds, and the rest of my seed packets are leftover from last summer, purchased from our local nursery here in Flagstaff.
I’m also going to give tomatoes another try, even though they haven’t worked the last two years. Damn our short growing season. I made the mistake of planting them directly in my raised bed back in 2022, and an early cold snap killed off my plant right before they ripened. Last year, I neglected my plants (which I started indoors) before I could even transplant them due to fire.
But, I’m not giving up yet. Juuuust adjusting things a bit. I’m growing bush beefsteak tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and spoon tomatoes.
I started my pepper and tomato seeds indoors on March 30. My plan is to transplant my peppers into my main raised as soon as I know the threat of frost has passed, and to transplant the tomatoes into separate potters I can move inside overnight come fall.
I sowed my snap peas and radishes directly into my garden outdoors this past weekend as well.
While I was completely ready to give up on spinach (it always bolts so fast), romaine (same bolting problem) and kale (aphids galore), Ryan was less-than-enthused when I told him about my plans to neglect the delicate leafy greens I haven’t had the best success with in the past.
In typical Ryan fashion, his response was “well if you won’t do it, I will.”
“And I’ll do it better.“
So… Ryan spent the last weekend of March building a second raised garden bed on wheels so he can plant spinach, romaine lettuce and kale.
…of course, the day after he built it, it was covered in about six inches of snow, because Flagstaff.
We’ll see how Ryan’s greens fare this year.
Now, I’m just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit so I can plant everything else and harden off the seedlings I’ve started indoors.
I can’t wait til harvest time!
