Taming a Wild HOA Vegetable Garden

Once Upon a Time, there was a garden named Serendipity.

Inside Serendipity there are different areas where different varieties of trees and fruiting plants live.

First there is Citrus Lane.
Citrus lane is lined with several fruit trees and tropical vines like passionfruit but gets its name because it is home to about a dozen plus different varieties of citrus trees.

Next there is Aisle Kai.
Here, the tropical trees live in a protected microclimate where they can enjoy the warmth of the low desert while avoiding the sun’s harsh rays. It is home to several avocado trees, mango, soursop, dragonfruit and loquats.

Next is Aurora Boulevard. This part of Serendipity is home to deciduous trees. In the winter, they drop their leaves and go to sleep. In the spring they are a striking sight of romantic blooms. It is home to delicious, peach, apple, pomegranate and plum trees.

The “Heart of Serendipity” refers to the main vegetable garden. Serendipity originally began as 6 garden beds in my backyard. Over time, I began expanding and continuing to grow in the form of a container garden. This part of Serendipity is the oldest and has probably had the most change in the last 3 years. It is home to hundreds of vegetables and hidden behind a wall of trees. The only way to enter this portion of the garden, is through the Star Jasmine arbor. This entrance is a fairytale dream when in bloom. Its white pinwheel blooms and iceberg roses greets those who enter.

There is Arch Rose Claire. This portion of Serendipity is right in the center of the Heart of Serendipity. It is a long, living tunnel made up of red climbing roses and grapevines loaded with dangling fruit. Every year, the tunnel transforms into a fantastical portal of foliage. It is often lit up at night in a warm glow with string lights peeking behind dinner plate leaves.

Finally, there is Fig Alley. This side walkway grew into a side orchard lined with rare fig trees. They were all rooted from cuttings. The alley is on the narrow side but looks lovely when all the trees are covered in their massive leaves and sweet fruit.

If you’ve stumbled across Serendipity: Welcome. I am Star but you can call me Plant Girl ( mainly because it sounds super cool and makes me feel like a superhero and who doesn’t want to feel like a superhero? Not me. that’s for sure) and these are my adventures in Serendipity.

My go-to large nursery containers ( i highly recommend the 25 gallon and 15 gallon sizes).
Large Nursery Containers

Irrigation Supplies:
https://aff.dripdepot.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=48

Everything I use in my garden is listed here:
https://linktr.ee/gardeningwithstar
i find my music at:
https://share.epidemicsound.com/85ne86

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Here’s the music i use in my videos:
https://share.epidemicsound.com/85ne86

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I’m in the garden for the first time in
2024 and I’m so excited there’s so much to do before I start touching anything I
just want to look around at Serendipity this is Citrus Lane in Serendipity and
as you can see some of my plants have definitely needed a little help from me
but I’m glad I’m here now there’s still basil alive even though it’s been
kind of cold and the citrus trees looks so beautiful there’s a lot of fruit on
them um this one is a Valencia orange as you can see they’re starting to ripen
they still have a tinge of green so I need to wait just a little bit longer
but the trees are now taller than the fence which feels awesome over on this
side I have a couple of vines that are looking kind of scraggly wait oh I was
like what is that I thought it was a worm there’s a green bean right here
okay cool I’ll put that in my pocket this is my Mexican cream guava and for
the most part it’s looking fantastic it’s been really cold for the last few
days and it’s hanging in there looks like it has a little bit of frost damage
but it’s very minimal and overall the tree is looking really really pretty
this is my Burgundy Plum and I don’t know why it’s not asleep yet some of the
foliage looks like it’s starting to fall but for the most part it’s still green this
is a blood orange look how tall it is this has not given fruit for the last
like 2 years but hopefully next year will be the year last year was the first
time it flowered but we got no fruit so hopefully this time it flowers and
fruits this is a Cara Cara orange and look at the size of these
things they’re massive we’ve already harvested one but it wasn’t fully ripe
oh let me let me put up this papaya oh I don’t know if it’ll make it
but we’ll keep it there for now this tree produced like a good four or five
of these huge cara cara oranges let’s see if I can give you a good shot of those
look how beautiful they are and and though they’re really bright orange
right now they’re still not ready because the last one that we tried
looked gorgeous on the inside but it wasn’t fully ripe there’s a few loofas
still hanging on and I think this was Malibar spinach that has started going
to seed really really cute so hopefully we
get some more because I was using that to put into soups and stews on this side
there’s Peas I got scared it was just this that
fell over in this container where I planted Frederick passion fruit I have a
lot of peas down here I need to come through and just stake them up because
my plan was to have them climb the passion fruit so that they could protect
it from the cold and it could make it into the spring there’s more papaya over
here these are a lot younger so these haven’t fallen down and then over here I
have some more brassicas these look gorgeous I think I planted these from
seed actually the blackberries haven’t fallen asleep either and then here I
have some roses that I definitely need to get under control because the canes are coming out onto the pathway and then
a few Peppers over here I still have some okra this is an improved Meyer lemon
tree and as you can see this little tree is not very tall it’s definitely stayed
a lot more compact but I do prune it often also this one was absolutely
loaded with lemons and we already finished them all they were amazing I
love this little tree one of my favorites in the garden for sure next to
it is another Gorgeous Beauty that is a Ruby Red Grapefruit and look at all the
fruit it has and look at the size of these things like these are not small
grapefruit and it is a quite a small tree compared to the amount and size of
the fruit and like even if I lift up some of these branches you can see
there’s more down there oh it’s beautiful and those grapefruit get so
sweet especially when I allow them to ripen all the way they don’t taste as
acidic as the grapefruit usually are and I saw a little bee around here I haven’t
seen bees in such a long time this is the variegated Pink Eureka lemon tree and
it’s looking really good I remember when I planted it the trunk was so
skinny it could barely support the tree and now the trunk is definitely
thickening up oh there are bees oh they’re back they came back for me this
basil plant needs to go soon but I’ll allow a portion of it to flower so that
the bees can enjoy that this is an Anna Apple and I think this is the one that I
planted from Tractor Supply yeah it is it totally made it it’s alive which is
good because I planted another one and the other one didn’t make it so I’m glad
that at least one of them survived and it hasn’t gone to sleep yet either and I
don’t know if it will now that the days are warming up but I’m probably not
going to get fruit for like another year or so so that’s okay this is my
asparagus at this point should I start cutting it back it’s all yellow I mean
it looks pretty regardless but I want to make sure I get a good amount of fruit
down here I have a lot of onions that are doing
well same thing over here lots and lots of onions look if I show you the ground
there’s a lot of weeds and things that have self-seeded themselves that I need to
clean up this is a peach tree Desert Gold Peach and it’s still hanging in
there nice and green but I want it to go to sleep because I need these trees to
go dormant so that I can get a good amount of fruit this one did give me
some really nice fruit last year it wasn’t a whole lot of it but the fruit
was tasty and this year I hope I get more the Citrus are definitely loving
the cooler weather this is a Sweet Keylime that I got from my mother-in-law
and this tree we didn’t know whether it would survive or not because it was
really really old I mean look at the trunks that it has it’s like all gnarly
and stuff I had to root prune it very very heavily and then I kept it in a
more protected area of the garden which was underneath the arches
for like a good portion of the summer so that the sun wouldn’t fry it and then
finally once it started cooling down just a little bit I brought it out here
and then once I started seeing New Growth cuz at that point I was like
it’s probably going to make it and it did and I’m really happy about that because it
was my mother-in-laws and she had it for so
long and I really wanted to try and save it to graft onto it to practice my
grafting and so that the tree could go to a new home and I think Serendipity is
like the perfect home for it I haven’t tried the fruit yet but once it starts
flowering and fruiting I can’t wait to take a basket of that to my
mother-in-law these are the leeks that I planted earlier they’re looking really
really good and then there’s garlic here looking amazing and a couple of other
things that have self-seeded these are some of the potatoes over here actually
over in this container and then this one I haven’t planted anything into but
these are starting to self seed themselves and then this other container
has more leeks this is a Pakistan Mulberry that that I planted in a 25 gallon
container and it is looking beautiful but it also has not gone to
sleep so I need it to go Mimis because I want fruit I want mulberries this year
the Florida Prince Peach is one of the decidious trees that is definitely going
to sleep already and you can tell because of its yellow leaves so
sometimes what I’ll do is I’ll gently come over and knock off any of the
leaves that haven’t fallen off on their own kind of just nudging it to go
to sleep because I want to get all those chill hours that it needs to be able to
fruit properly come on you can do it and then
look at these leeks these look beautiful over here and I think the reason for
that is because they are getting some dappled sunlight right here because
I still have the shade cloth up I know we’re supposed to put it up for the
summer take it down down for the winter but because I have it all over my yard
and I set it up myself it was just so tedious to take to put on and off and
over the winter I get really really busy we have a lot of birthdays we have we
have the holidays we have other family events and so keeping the shade cloth up
kind of slowed down Serendipity and put it into sort of a winter sleep but not
entirely it’s almost like the plants kept growing but they didn’t grow quite
as fast as they would if the if the shade cloth was off they’re so green and
they’re so alive but they’re just steadily growing instead of exploding
with growth like they normally would in the winter time because here in the low
desert our winter isn’t like an actual winter it doesn’t really get cold it’s
more like people’s spring that’s definitely helped me to keep the garden
semi- manageable until I was able to get back out here and then this is the Santa
Rosa Plum which is massive oh my God this was a replacement for another Santa
Rosa Plum and I’m glad that this one’s still alive then there’s tomatillos over
here oh my gosh maybe some of these are actually ready to harvest cuz these
don’t get very big at all and then I have a whole bunch of tomatoes over here
and lots of fruit that should be ready to harvest soon hopefully see I feel
like this quickly turns into a garden tour because there’s so many plants to
see so I promise I’m going to get to work but let me just finish showing you
this is another David Austin Rose this is a Lady of Shalott and it’s really
pretty it’s not flowering right now but it did earlier in the year so hopefully
it will again soon next to it is a what is this Mexicola Grande avocado you can
still see some of the sun damage that I got last year look at this but the
little tree still kept on going and during the summer something else that I
noticed is the leaves started coming out way smaller and way thicker and then
once the weather cooled down the leaves started coming out a lot bigger and
thinner as well so that’s really cool how the trees
it seems like is starting to adapt to the little microclimate that it’s in and
then next to it I have my Peace Roses look how gorgeous these are everything
over here is kind of stretching this way towards the sunlight because of the
shade cloth but that’s okay because next week we’re going to be in the 70s and
soon after we’re going to start heating up again here I have some chickpeas and
then more garlic some brassicas and then this one’s just an herb planter
Parfianka Pomegranate is one of the trees that went to sleep almost
immediately look at this thing it said and for that reason I’m
out it looks wow it looks beautiful I haven’t gone in to trim it since it’s
been dormant but maybe I will soon last year we we got a good amount of
pomegranates on it but I didn’t really get to eat any because of the rats they
were like eating all of the inside and by the time I noticed it was far too
late so this year I’m really going to keep an eye on them so that hopefully we
finally get to try some uh this is an Owari Satsuma and this was a new planting
that didn’t grow as much as I would have hoped because it was still staked it was
hidden amongst the rest of the trees so it wasn’t getting the amount of air flow
and sunlight that it needed but after I pruned everything back hopefully it’ll
have its chance to shine and the next to it is a pineapple
guava oh the blueberries are starting to flower again look how pretty this is a
sunshine blueberry so it’s self-pollinating and then over here we
have a couple of eggplants different brassicas and annuals some herbs like
Rosemary mint oh my gosh let me tell you about this tomato real quick so on this
trellis I have this massive tomato which by the way was supposed to be a
dwarf variety how the heck is that dwarf that thing’s massive I planted this one
last year and everything started dying back so I assumed that this one would
die back too it was hidden amongst the Roses so for a while there I didn’t even
notice it and then when I finally did I decided to just keep it to see if
anything would come out of it maybe it could come back to life you can still
see like how old this tomato is it’s been here since last year when we had
all the hail damage over the summer I noticed it was still alive and then come
fall it started growing a little bit and now look at it it’s so tall and it’s got
lots of fruit lots of beautiful beautiful fruit this is my Sour Sop
tree it’s just tucked in there so that it stays alive and then over on this
side I have some more loofah forming up there along with a James Galway Rose P.S
on this side of the trellis I also have an Eden Rose you can see some of the
foliage up there but it hasn’t flowered yet so that’s what I’m waiting for over
on this side of the tropical little section
um this is a dwarf Cavendish banana hasn’t flowered yet but hopefully soon
it looks beautiful it’s very Lush this is a little Cado avocado looking
fantastic very very nice full and Lush here I have a couple of
peppers Holly Hock that self-seed itself and then some Iceberg
roses this is my clementine tree back there I have a red Malaysian
guava this one I need to replace this used to be a Tropic pink guava but it didn’t
make it through the summer because I didn’t put the shade cloth up fast
enough I really like how the entrance Arbor is definitely filling out with all
of this star jasmine then from back here you can see fuerte avocado right here
beautiful this is a gold nugget loquat hanging in
there and then this is a fruit punch mango we got one piece of fruit last
year it was amazing so hopefully this year we get a lot more and then look
at all of those beans hanging up there I need to harvest those but this is what
the garden looks like there’s Coral Vine climbing up the shade
structure and looking marvelous there’s tons of tomatoes over
here so I don’t know if I need to start anymore right now because I feel like
maybe just maybe I have enough and then this whole section is also loaded with
Tomatoes these cages are from Gardeners Supply look how beautiful that
looks and then same thing over here on these DIY trellises I have more tomatoes
that I need to stake up but look how gorgeous they are oh I can’t wait The
Grapes fell asleep before I was able to say hello or say good
night and the roses are going strong oh my goodness look at those huge shoots
up there so everything just looks
beautiful the rest of these leaves should be coming down soon but look how
intricate and stunning the network of grapes
gets that is so so so so pretty I love it I think that just looks so Whimsical
and that’s basically it I have a bunch of smaller containers down the sides of
the garden they have a few annuals Peppers herbs
same thing over here some carrots oh I never planted these little onions poor
little guys I have a bunch of eggplants over here so that’s basically a
walkthrough of the garden I’m not going to go through all the plants that I have
in the vegetable garden because there’s so many I would not be able to get
started working I would just probably spend my whole day out here showing you
everything oh there’s one more lime we haven’t
harvested okay so I think the first first thing I’m going to get to is probably I think staking I’m going to
get to staking first and trellising things up that way I can start clearing
up areas and then figuring out what I need to do but honestly what I really
really wish I could start with is just sowing a few seeds should I just do that
I’m probably just going to do that I’m going to start with the fun stuff
because I haven’t been out here and though there’s a lot to clean a lot to
tidy up and that’s important
too I just want to spend some time in Serendipity relaxing so I’m going to I’m
going to go get my seeds real quick there’s a lot of stuff that we can
grow here in the low desert during January even though it’s like the
coldest time of year for a lot of places it’s technically also the coldest time
here in the low desert of Arizona but this year I mean it feels so good
outside right now it feels like spring I have the option to plant arugula beets
bok choy borage carrots chives collared green fava beans fennel garbanzos
lettuce green onion parsley peas radish seed potato radish rutabaga spinach Swiss
chart and turnip and that’s what I can plant from seed there’s a lot of other
vegetables that we can transplant but I don’t have any transplants ready because
I didn’t start any during the winter time which is so unlike me because
usually that’s one of my favorite things to focus on but I genuinely mean it when
I say been so busy I haven’t had time here I have some garlic I don’t even
know if it’s a good time to plant any more garlic but I figured I might just
try so I have a little bit of store bought garlic and then I also have a
bunch of potatoes that have started sprouting in my kitchen look at these so
I figured I’d plant those and then I have some gandules or this is called
pigeon pea I have one growing in the garden but I thought I’d plant a few more and then I also have garbanzos
which I plant from store bought garbanzos I have three containers of
seeds right here and they are not organized at all like I mean they are
organized but not the way you would think like I have one for peas
cauliflower pumpkin kale leafy greens beets onion purple flowers each
container is very random but each variety of vegetable is inside its own
photo container I’m not going to grow arugula I know arugula will grow really
really quickly and it’ll probably grow really really well but my first year
gardening I tried growing arugula I grew a whole bed of it I did not like it one
bit it’s got a very peppery spicy flavor to it that I just don’t like in my
greens but I will plant some beets bok choy carrots so let me look for those
beets beets Bok choy I have Pack toy oh some seeds are
coming out and then carrots I don’t see carrots here I just
see parsnips and rutabaga I have a bunch of other seeds here that I just need to
put away into their proper containers carrots
peas there’s a few herbs that I know i’ll need to plant
and you know what I’m not going to start any more tomato plants I don’t think
maybe I will maybe a couple of dwarfs because I feel like I have a whole bunch
of indeterminates in the garden so maybe I’ll start a few dwarf tomato seeds this
week and a few pepper seeds because I have peppers in the garden but I feel
like I don’t have a whole lot of peppers I have a whole lot of eggplants so I’m
not starting any of those for sure chives I have chives growing in the garden
collard greens so where’s all of my leafy
greens oh it might be in here I have some radish lettuce where’s my leafy greens at I
need peas leafy greens turnips I think I have everything wait
what about fava Bean Fava Bean is one that I wanted to grow for my
sister so let me try and find that beans edamame no okay there’s no Fava Bean in here I
must have another Bean section oh here we go fava beans from Mi Gardener I’m
going to go I didn’t bring a pencil I always forget my pencils but I’m going
to go through and decide how many of each variety I want to plant so for the
beets I think I only want to plant the Golden beets I’ve tried now store bought
golden beets and also the dark red beets and I like the golden ones so much more
especially in salads they’re so delicious for bok choy a few of these
seeds fell out so whenever that happens since I don’t know what variety they
are okay just toss them in there uh for Bok Choy I’m going to plant some Toy Choy
some Pak Choy white stem cabbage ooh there’s also purple lady bok
Choy I’ll stick to the other two though cuz I still have February March to plant
more things so then I can go through and add other varieties into the garden at
that point okay so I did beets Bok choy I’m going to do carrots next for
carrots I think I’m going to stick with new kuroda I already have chives
collard greens that’s going to be in the leafy greens container I might try
growing some sorrel what about Mizuna and then I have
some collards some giant Swiss
chard Bloomsdale spinach I’m also going to do some golden purslane quelites Grandes
which is a greens from native seed seed search what was the seed that I was
looking for again col oh I already got collard greens okay that’s it for some of
the greens uh for the herbs I can plant dill and I want to plant Dill for sure
because during the Spring and early early summer I love making fresh Ranch
for my kids especially for for their school lunches I’ll slice up a bunch of
veggies and then I’ll make them some homemade ranch and they could just dip
it in there and they love it maybe I’ll plant just a few more chives I really
like chives they’re delicious and I have a few growing in the garden but I just
feel like you can never have enough chives I think I’m going to do garlic
chives I can also do fennel porridge here I have cilantro where do I have no
Dill you guys I might not have bought any more Dill I do have some growing in
the garden so maybe that that’ll be enough right do I have some in here
no oh man oh I do have some Mammoth Dill I have several heads of lettuce growing
in the garden but I want to plant more because we eat so much lettuce not
necessarily in salads but on top of like tacos or
tostadas and so you can never have enough I’m going to do some Hansen improved
crisp head lettuce and some butter crunch lettuce and some Merlot lettuce cuz
the Merlot is just such a pretty variety I need to pick up more lettuce seeds I
didn’t realize I was running so low or I could just save some green onion parsley
I think I need to buy more parsley seeds oh
Peas I have the garbanzo peas garbanzo beans but I’m also going to plant some
some melting sugar snow peas peas are just so beautiful I love to grow these
all throughout the garden because my kids love them and I’m probably going to
plant like two packets maybe even three packets of peas
trust me my kids cannot get enough of them the Oregon sugar pot are I think
some of my favorite because they’re just so crunchy and they don’t get any sort
of stringiness to them for the radish I think I want to do the watermelon radish
and maybe this one daikon radish because I’ve seen a lot of like uh kimchi and it
has daikon in it and so I want to try it out let me start putting them into my
little basket um rutabaga I don’t think I’m going to grow that one turnips I
have Golden Ball turnip so I think that one will work I also have purple top
white Globe turnip yeah I’ll try that one too so when it comes to figuring out
what exactly to plant in the garden and when to plant it it the way that I do it
is I just look up here for the low desert at least in Arizona growing in
the garden January on Google and then it’ll pull up Angela’s website and then
she has it broken down by every single month what you can plant for that month
and that’s what I go based off of I don’t have like my own calendar
sometimes I’ll write down my own because there’s so many seeds and I’m not going
to plant every single one so I’ll just make a list of the ones that I like and
the seeds that I know I have in my collection not every state has an Angela
but that’s definitely helped me out because I am very
forgetful and not very organized and the fact that her website is very organized
and has everything broken down just makes it a lot easier for me so if
you’re gardening in the low desert and you don’t know what to plant right now
just Google growing in the garden January or growing in the garden
February and then she’ll break down like what needs to be pruned what needs to be
fertilized what needs to be like everything Garden chores to do for that
month let me look inside of the leafy greens for spinach cuz I think I got
spinach seeds but just to be on the safe side oh this is Egyptian spinach too
there’s just so many things to choose from that sometimes I just I want to
throw Every Single Seed into the garden this is my collection of seeds
it’s not very organized and it’s quite large eventually I want something a
little bit more permanent I’m thinking about somehow figuring out how to create
a Furniture piece that holds all of my seeds I’ve seen those like library
cataloges that are made out of wood and those look so beautiful and that would
definitely work but sometimes it can be rather expensive so maybe there’s some
sort of other alternative that I can figure out or DIY myself but I’m not
much of a builder so we’ll see how that goes anywho who I love collecting seeds
and I’ve been collecting them for the past 3 years because of serendipity now
that I have a garden I want to grow every single vegetable that I can’t find
at the grocery store and once in a while I also like to buy some of the fruit
that I do find at the grocery store just because it tastes a lot better when I
grow it myself at home but my main focus is growing things from all over the
world that I won’t be able to find at the grocery store or things that I could
maybe find but it would be really expensive to purchase locally but having
this many seeds definitely does make the process of figuring out which ones to
plant a lot harder because in the past years I always tend to go overboard and
I want to plant every single seed in the garden but realistically I don’t have
room for every single seed that I own so I try to limit myself to about two
varieties per plant but sometimes it’s hard to even stick to that so I end up
with a gazillion tags to label and put out into the garden but do I regret
having this many seeds no I don’t because even though this process can be
a little bit tedious and I can’t ever make up my mind it’s one of my favorite
Parts about gardening is just getting to choose exactly what I’m going to be
planting what color it’s going to be how big it’s going to grow how fast it’s
going to fruit and knowing that if I don’t grow it myself I won’t be able to
purchase it anywhere else I didn’t realize I was planting so much stuff and
now I’m ready to just go throughout the garden and start popping these in I have
one garden bed that’s completely open and so I’ll start there but then what I
usually do is I walk throughout all of serendipity and I just find open space
and pop a few seeds in there this is the garden bed that I’m
going to be working on as you can see it’s really bare there’s not very much
here this uh Rosellel habiscus was looking beautiful but it can’t handle the cold
very well so I’m going to remove it and then I’m going to spread a little bit
more compost and then I’ll get straight to seed planting first things first is
chopping this down could I just let it stay here until next fall I could but
Roselle habiscus grows so huge that it’ll take over this entire
garden bed like it did earlier and I’m not going to get any fruit in the
meantime so I’m just going to clear it out for now I like to start these from
seed and I start them every single year I’ll be fine plus I got a really good
harvest of it this year I’m going to cut it as close to the
ground as possible and because there’s a lot of worms in this garden bed the
worms and everything else will break down what’s left in the soil I did
spread some fresh compost not too long ago so technically do I really need to
no because nothing’s been planted here but maybe I will just go ahead and start
sticking some seeds in here should I I should huh
I should I will I will just start popping some seeds in what should we
plant I think I’m going to make it a whole bed full of root vegetables this
is what I like to use for planting seeds I made it on accident one time when I
was trying to make my own Harvest basket I cut out this piece of wood right here
and it came out kind of funky looking and I never finished the project and I was
going to throw this away and then one time I was like wait I could use it to
make my lines in the garden beds whenever I’m planting seeds so that’s what I
use it for now what I do is I want to make my rows going this way so I’ll take
it and I’ll just start going back and forth all across maybe I will add a
little bit more compost actually maybe I’ll do that you guys out of the garden
bed please so I’m just going to
spread this over the bed to give myself a blank
starting slate okay now let me get my tool I’m going to use this one to spread
everything oh making sure to not cover up any tags now that it’s been spread out I’m
going to water it in before I add my seeds I’m going to let that water seep
in for just a little bit and then I’ll get to the seeds portion I’m going to
start marking out where I’m going to put the seeds that way I can space them properly and I like to indent them that way when
I come do some overhead watering the water falls into the little
indentation that I’ve made and it helps to keep it moist a little bit longer so
I’m going to put some right there and then 12 about 12 in apart I’m
going to put another row another 12 in okay and I’m going to keep going
throughout the rest of the bed once I Mark out my trenches it’s a lot easier
to just go through and decide what to plant where for example this one’s going
to be golden beets next up is purple top white Globe turnip daon radish over here
Touchstone Golden Beet over here watermelon
radish and this one and then I have enough room for one more and because
this one’s going to be closer to the trellis I can even plant a different
type of vegetable that I wouldn’t mind getting a little bit bigger so maybe
I’ll even try to do like a row of lettuce or something and then for the
Oregon sugar snap peas I want those to climb up this trellis so I’m actually
going to start planting them just around where I have the t- post that way they
can start using the little tendrils to climb up next all I do is take out my
seeds and then on the back of the package it usually says how far to Space
them these say 3 to 4 inches so I dump a few seeds onto my hand
and then I just go through and direct sew them
I’m going to sow a couple of extra just in case some of them don’t germinate and
once they start popping up I’ll just come through and thin them out there you
go it’s that easy look at how many seeds I have left I just used a couple and now I can either sew these
somewhere else in the garden or save them for next year or in a few weeks
come through and sow a couple more next is purple top white Globe turnip and
it’s going to be the exact same process just dumping out a few seeds onto my
hand and just sowing them these say
spacing 4 inches next up
is daikon radish these I haven’t grown
successfully yet so hopefully this year is my year
and the seeds themselves for these are supposed to be spaced 3 to 4 inches
apart and look at the seeds aren’t they so pretty and because
these are bigger I can see perfectly where I’m spacing them so that allows me
to be a little bit more exact so that I don’t have to come thin out so much
stuff golden beets Touchstone golden beets these have a really really pretty
shape and these are also ones that will be a lot easier to sew because look at
the size on them four to six inches apart I’m going to do four next is watermelon radish last up is the new kuroda
carrot oh look at what these look like they’re definitely on the smaller side
but they’re big enough to where I can see
them and then I’ll come them out after and then sometimes I have leftover seeds
and what I usually do with those is I walk throughout the garden
and I just start sprinkling them in open areas last but not least I need to plant
some of my peas every single trellis is going to have the Oregon sugar pod snow
peas so I’m just going to put a tag on one of them and then a dibber would be
nice right now but I I don’t know where mine is at let me go look for it real
quick so I couldn’t find one but I did find a stick to plant my peas I’m going
to go around every single trellis and I’m going to make a few
holes maybe like four holes or so then I’m going to take a few
seeds and pop them into each hole and then these will just start climbing the
trellises as they continue growing and I’ll just cover them back
up so I don’t forget now that the whole bed is planted I want
to go through and water in all of the seeds and then I’ll top them with a
little bit of compost maybe I’ll do the compost first and then I’ll Water them
in I’m going to mist it thoroughly first that way I don’t move my seeds
around because I want them to stay in the exact
place where I put them now that I’ve misted it and I feel
like the soil it’s not necessarily locked in place but it’s a little bit
more secure I’m going to go in with the shower setting and lightly water it in and also making sure to water where I
planted the peas the sugar snap peas okay and that’s it this bed is ready to
go oh wait these onions need water time to plant some
potatoes this Roselle habiscus plant did beautifully during the summer it was one
of the only plants that loved our summer heat despite how crazy it got and during
the fall It produced quite a bit but now it’s kind of done what it’s going to do
and it can still stay alive but I feel like starting with a fresh new plant
just is is a lot easier for me and that way I can make use of the space and
plant something like potatoes in there I mean I guess I have these other ones
that I can do too but I want to plant other stuff there so I’m going to start
chopping it down this will also open up the entire
area so that I can get to the back containers
this is why I want to get a wood chipper eventually because then I’d be able to
mulch all of this up and put it in my compost or top my beds with it and I have so many stakes here
because the one thing about the Jamaica plant is that it doesn’t have a whole
lot of like stability it can flop over very easily I had to stake it up a few
times now that that’s gone I can pull up the
irrigation so that I can plant some potatoes in here some potatoes and in
the containers next to it where I used to have sweet potatoes I’ll probably
plant oh no I’ll probably plant leafy greens or lettuce and that won’t take a
a lot of space because I want to keep some containers for sweet potato I’m going to toss all of this in
there and
then I’m going to start basically just digging a few holes and then popping
some potatoes in there I want my to plant my potatoes pretty deep and I’m
still going to top these off with some more
compost but I want to make sure that my potatoes aren’t at the surface of the
soil oh I just got to be careful with the worms and the soil I don’t want to
disturb them too much so I just dug a hole pretty deep and then I popped another potato in
there maybe this one and when I when when I place the potatoes in there I
want all of this to be facing up another one now I’m going to smooth the soil one
more time and I’m going to top it with a little bit more compost before I add my
irrigation back on there okay let’s smooth it out next I’m going to reattach the drip irrigation uh didn’t I have one more next I’m going to add all of this on
top because this is going to help to protect the soil so that it doesn’t dry
out too fast and I’m not going to water it in because it’s set up on drip so
it’ll water itself is that for me oh okay hold on we might be able to use
this right now oh yeah thank you sir so that container is set up so let’s
take a break real quick I ordered a new tripod because I’ve had the same one for
a while now and I wanted an overhead tripod so that I could give you guys
better shots whenever I’m cooking in the kitchen or when I’m in the garden like
if I want to plant seeds I can have the the overhead tripod cool right above the
garden bed instead of having like a faraway shot or having the tripod legs
showing so this is by the brand newer neewer
neewer it was definitely an investment cuz I’m used to spending like 20 $25 on
a tripod this one was like 120 something
and I think it was on sale good let’s see
here oh wow the case itself feels fantastic yeah baby oh this feels so
nice okay there’s a huge difference between this one and the one I currently
use okay let me see see how tall this one can get it
feels like amazing quality honestly oh wait oh it keeps going holy
crap okay wow this thing is massive holy crap I’m trying to figure out this
whole extension for oh and then how do you it didn’t come with instructions
right unlock lock but lock for what oh maybe oh maybe okay okay I think
I I think I got it no I don’t got it do I no okay hold
on let me extend it a little bit more how do I get this thing like this
oh wait wait but how do I get it to
stay oh there you go a you guys hold on and then can I extend it even more yes I
can I can give you overhead shots now wow okay okay okay I’m so excited about
a year ago I purchased this bird bath at Lowe’s for about $30 to $40 at the time
I bought it because I was dealing with a lot of bird pressure in the garden and
it was driving me insane because I would be waiting for tomatoes to ripen and the
birds would get to them before I could and they’d constantly peck holes in them
and it was driving me nuts because I felt like a lot of my Harvest was going
to waste because the birds were getting to it before I could and it wasn’t just
a few birds or a handful of birds it was like a whole flock of birds flocks of
birds that would come to Serendipity and start pecking at everything basically I
thought that adding water would solve the problem because then the birds
wouldn’t have to pick the fruit to get water they could just go ahead and drink
water from the bird bath and at some point I think I even set up two bird
baths and it kind of worked for a little bit but then it stopped working because
there was just far too many birds and so they started going after all of my grape
Harvest it was just a whole ordeal and for the most part the bird bath lay kind
of empty and I don’t know if it was just because it was a little bit too deep for
the birds or what I even tried adding rocks in there but it for some reason it
just wasn’t working and there came a point where I thought about getting rid
of it because even though I like the way it looked it just wasn’t serving any
purpose and then I had an idea to turn it into a planter I scrubbed it down
cleaned it really well and then I drilled some drainage holes at the
bottom of the top portion and I moved it over to this portion of serendipity so
that I can stare at it whenever I’m working in the kitchen and I love the
way it looks here last year I planted a bunch of flowers in it and it looks so
Whimsical and this year I plan to do the same I want to go for some sort of pink
theme I can already picture it in my head I think it’s going to look stunning
and today I pulled out a few of the larger Roots just because I wanted to
see what the root systems looked like of the plants that I had here last year and
they looked pretty good they actually filled out the whole container which I’m
not shocked by because it’s kind of shallow compared to the other planters
that I have in the garden and I could just take everything out and start with
fresh soil but honestly I don’t like removing soil from the garden ever
unless there’s an issue with the soil I’m never going to take away from it I’m
only ever going to add to it because all the roots that you saw in this bird bath
will eventually break down and add life to the soil Plus in the next few weeks
I’m going to be adding in some red regular worms now that it’s a bird bath
planter it’s set up on drip irrigation so it gets watered every single day it’s
not going to dry out and the only thing left to do now is just figure out what
plants I want to put in here this time around I went with lettuce and chives
but I know it’s going to get a little bit too hot in the next few weeks so I’m
going to be heading over to the Garden Center soon to pick up a few flowers to
put in here and make an arrangement after I was done with the bird bath I
moved on to planting some potatoes that had sprouted in my kitchen and these I’m
planting into old tree pots that I purchased from Lowe’s or Home Depot
because I’ve purchased a lot of trees over the last few years and I never like
to get rid of the containers I like to repurpose and reuse them and I treat
them like mini raised beds where I keep adding to the soil every single year
topping it with compost adding a little bit of fertilizer and this is how I’ve
been able to grow a lot of things like peppers tomatoes eggplants different
herbs and this time around I’m going to try potatoes I probably could have
gotten away with just putting one potato in there but I had quite a bit of
potatoes to plant out so I wanted to see how it would work if I tried adding two
potatoes I know that might be a little bit crowded but I’m curious to see will
they make a lot of small potatoes will they make a few larger potatoes because
they’re kind of fighting for space will one potato plant grow a lot better than
the other one I’m really curious to see what the Harvest will look like at the
end of the season Serendipity is a huge mess right
now in the main Garden so before I keep sowing seeds which I really want to do
I’m going to clean up over here because it’s driving me crazy and I feel like
I’m enjoying sowing seeds and planting things but I’m going to enjoy it even
more if the garden is a little bit tidier so first I’m going to go through
and pick up all of the really big big Pieces by hand and then the rest of the
leaves I’m going to try and use the leaf mulcher vacuum to shred everything up and
that way I can use it to dump over the garden beds oh my God that is a lot of leaves this would be a lot better with
gloves but I left my gloves out and because it’s been raining they’re really
dirty and also I’m kind of paranoid that there might be a spider inside or something so
I’m just going to use my hands and then I’m going to wash my
gloves and next time I come out to the Garden I’ll have them ready to
go so for now I’m going to pick out all the trash and all of the really large
pieces that can’t get picked up ow oh no these are
thorny ow oh let me bring my my stuff over here I should have other gloves hold on
I should have other gloves okay never mind I wasn’t able to
find my other pair of gloves that looks fine I think this portion is ready so
I’m going to go get it seeing the grape Vines without their
leaves feels very bittersweet because almost all year round they are so green
and Lush I have two different varieties of grape Vines growing in the garden
right now one of them is called a flame seedless grape and that one is more of
like a reddish purple color it’s really beautiful really sweet it’s like the
kind that you find at the grocery store and I also planted another variety
called a Thomson’s green grape and those are the really nice juicy crunchy grapes
that you find at the grocery store even on the hottest days of summer here in
the low desert of Arizona if you live here or if you visit it during the
summertime you will know that it is Miser durable in our community even the
rattles Snakes will come down from the mountains seeking water and shelter
because it just gets so hot for just about every single creature around us
and in the garden there’s a lot of plants that start to wilt and they’re
just not that happy and there’s a few plants that really don’t care how hot it
gets and thankfully grape Vines happen to be one of those plants as long as they
have a good amount of water and their soils not drying out they don’t really
care about the heat at least here in Serendipity and so last year even when
the rest of the garden looked really really sad the grape Vines looked
gorgeous this entire area of serendipity turned into a tunnel full of grape Vines
and full of roses and the grape Vines actually protected the Roses so that
they wouldn’t get scorched quite as fast all in all it was a magical sight to
look at from my window because I was stuck inside all summer long and so I’d
look out here and I would see all of these Bunches of grapes dangling down
and leaves that were as big as dinner plates it was so so beautiful but
towards the end of the year I get very busy we have the holidays we have a
bunch of birthdays coming up and so I’m out here in the garden less than less
and the days just fly by because it seems like every weekend there’s
something else going on and as we approach the end of the year I feel like
there’s two weeks in all of December and all of a sudden December’s gone and so
one day I was looking out the window and the grapes had their leaves and the next
day I looked out the window again and the leaves were suddenly yellow and then
one day I glanced over and the leaves were on the floor and I don’t know when
they got there that feels bittersweet because every other year I’ve been here
when the leaves are falling and I’m here when the grape Vines are finally going to
sleep but last year I missed them so I got to make sure that I take advantage
of this time to prune them up nicely and get them ready for this year for when
they wake up again they’ll have a little bit of a haircut and hopefully it won’t
be as bad as last year’s but it’s probably not going to be as good as next
year’s either way I hope that I get a ton of grapes and a ton of big beautiful
dinner plate leaves because last year I really wanted to make a dish with those
leaves but I never got around to it so maybe this year will be the year also
I’ve had this idea in my head since last year on what to do with the grape Vine
cuttings and I can’t wait to show you that project and hopefully it works out
the way I see it in my mind but in the meantime I’m just imagining what these
grape Vines are going to look like in a few weeks these are some of the most
beautiful tomatoes that I’ve ever grown in the garden and I didn’t even mean to
plant them here but I did by accident because I thought they were dwarf
tomatoes so here’s the thing if you go to the grocery store you’re going to see
Roma tomatoes and once in a while you’ll see a few other like big slicing
tomatoes but there’s usually maybe one or two varieties at most unless you go
to a farmers market or a special tea Market of some sort but if you grow them
yourself in the garden there’s hundreds to choose from and not only can you pick
what shape color pattern you want your tomato to have but you can also choose
the size and I had started a bunch of seeds for some tomato plants that were
dwarfs and some that were indeterminate but I had no idea which ones I was
planting because unfortunately there were rats in the garden again last year
it was a whole or deal one I do not care to think about right now but basically
these rats were driving me crazy and for weeks if not months I could not figure
out how to catch them not only did they eat a bunch bunch of my fruit bite
through a bunch of my irrigation bite through some power cords did I ever show
you guys those videos it might be up on my channel but one day I found a bunch
of bites on my power cords the ones that connect all of the string lights that
are in the garden those don’t include the solar powered string lights that
they bid through as well but they didn’t stop there because on my porch I had a
seeedling table that I built and on that table were Flats of tomatoes of
different varieties different sizes and a tag labeling every single one of them
so that I knew what day I had planted them what the variety was and I had even
labeled how big they would get because I was planning so many varieties there was
no way I was going to remember every single one the tomatoes were doing fine
I was waiting to harden them off which basically means getting them used to the
sun slowly so that they don’t just die whenever I place them out into the
garden because the sun here is really really intense and if I were to do that
I would have no tomatoes left so I was working on that for so long and I was
keeping them alive even through heat waves I was out there watering them
every single day checking on them I was even setting up shade cloth all around
them because I wanted to make sure that I kept these Tomatoes nice and healthy
for the fall so that I could plant them in the garden one day I was outside and
I started realizing that the tomatoes were missing their tags and at first I
thought I was going crazy because it was a few tags missing at first but they
were so scattered around that a part of me was thinking maybe I had just buried
them deeper in the soil or maybe I’d forgotten one or two but I distinctly
remember labeling every single one and as time kept going by I kept noticing
more and more tags missing and I would look around and I couldn’t seem to find
them anywhere and then finally one day I was working out in the garden and I
found the nest that the rats were trying to build and there they had all of my
tomato tags I was Furious and so when it finally came time to plant the tomatoes
in the garden I had no idea what variety they were and because they were all
around the same height I didn’t know if they were going to get really huge or
stay really really small and so I just kind of Eeny meeny miny mow it and just
tossed them into the garden wherever I thought they would work best and here I
thought I was planting a bunch of dwarf tomatoes and after a few months the
vines started sprawling everywhere and so I finally started tying them up onto
this trellis and I’m so happy I did because it looks beautiful doesn’t it