No More Garden Salads For Me

It’s official. I’ve finally given up on growing salad greens in the desert. This year was the absolute worst. It stayed too hot for too long this October. I usually harvest my first batch of salad greens by the end of November. However, I had nothing growing this year, and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I sowed lettuce seeds three separate times, and nothing sprouted. The ants stayed out longer this year and scurried off with the entire stock. I even watched them march away with their bounty several times, much to my chagrin. This year had nothing to do with water (see this previous post) and everything to do with heat.

I’m in the process now of converting my seasonal garden into an arid one. It’s time to admit that I live in the desert. However, doing so is a gamble, as even cacti are dying in the summer now. It just remains too hot for longer durations.

Pictured below is what used to be my seasonal salad garden. I’m in the process of popping out some squares and planting something desert-y instead. I literally just started this project, so there’s nothing much to show right now. So far, I’ve planted a red fairy duster, an aloe, and a couple of lantanas.

In other areas of the garden, seeds are incubating under netting to protect them from birds, particularly curved-billed thrashers. These birds are aptly named, as I have two of them that constantly run around my yard, digging their beaks into everything. I’ve named one “Double” and the other “Trouble” for obvious reasons.

Allow me to present Exhibit A:

I find dug up seeds and bulbs all the time in the most random places, courtesy of either Double or Trouble. It never stops. They are little fuckers, I tell ya. Also, they are too smart for their own good. They can’t seem to get it through their thick little skulls to allow the sunflower seedlings to grow into mature plants so they can eat hundreds of seeds later. No, they would rather destroy the one sunflower plant now so they will have nothing to snack on later. I’m continually sprouting sunflower seeds indoors to have something to plant outside, hoping that at least one plant from the batch will reach maturity.

I already have a desert section in my yard that’s been growing cacti for over a decade. I never knew that cacti can grow so fast! It’s been amazing watching this side of my garden grow.

I admit that I planted too many trees and many of them had to figure out ways to grow away from their closest neighbor. This Chilean Mesquite suffered the worst and had to grow diagonally to get its patch of sunlight. It’s my biggest oopsie, but the tree doesn’t seem to mind.

I’ll keep documenting the progress of the new garden as it grows!

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