Spring in the low desert is always a race, but this year, early heat changed my spring garden plans. In this Arizona garden tour, I’m showing you what failed, what finished early, what’s thriving now, and what I’m changing before summer.
The ranunculus, anemones, sweet peas, garlic, daffodils, snapdragons, and peaches were all affected in different ways by our mild winter and early heat. Some crops finished earlier than I wanted, but that also opened up space for warm and hot-season crops like zinnias, squash, beans, cantaloupe, tomatoes, okra, basil, sunflowers, and more.
0:00 Early heat changed my spring garden plans
0:55 Cool-season crops that finished early
1:17 Garlic, ranunculus, and daffodil disappointments
2:25 Peach tree update
3:12 Snapdragons out, zinnias in
3:55 The unexpected benefit of planting summer crops early
4:36 Vertical squash experiment
5:59 Beans sharing trellis space
7:03 I’itoi onions, volunteer pumpkin, and summer crops
8:36 Elevated raised bed update
10:18 Sunflowers for summer shade
11:19 Butterfly habitat, milkweed, and puddling trays
12:11 Amaryllis and campanula blooms
13:10 Tomatoes
14:26 Volunteer sunflower and bitter melon trellis
15:39 Barbados cherry and grapes
16:26 Volunteers, Tatume squash, and fake snakes
17:34 Roses improving each year
19:21 Fig branch shading a rose
19:39 Beneficial insects and garden lessons
I’m also sharing several garden experiments, including growing squash vertically, planting bush beans and pole beans together, using fake snakes to protect squash blossoms from birds, growing bitter melon on a volunteer sunflower, adding wool pellets to an elevated raised bed, and using sunflowers for summer shade.
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22 Comments
I love this. So many people are upset with the weather and how it's ruining their garden plans. Instead of being frustrated, you lean into what the garden is teaching you. I try to do the same. I'll be out planting more roselle this weekend as the pill bugs keep eating my seedlings. Because they break down organic matter which feeds the soil, I have let them be and looked for alternative locations for roselle. Have you found any natural deterrents for pill bugs to companion plant with tasty seedlings like melons and roselle to distract the pill bugs while the plants get established?
Birds are eating my Armenian cucumber flowers! I was shocked. I'll try the snake trick on the next batch of flowers to see if that helps.
Wow. Nice to see how beautiful your garden is in spite of weather induced issues. I have not been able to get sweet peas to grow.. could be the clay soil? My tomatoes are fantastic; squash was good for a few weeks. I have not had success tying mine up vertically. The vine borers seem to like them tied up nice and neat. My best plant is the one i let grow loose .
Nearly all of my fruits are having an off year. Raspberry and blueberry are not here for it. But the Concord grape is showing out enough for the both of them. I need to rethink my trellis because it is just falling over!
That was a great update! We fill a saucer for beneficials (also lizards and birds) by sliding it under the corner of a watering grid. One per bed. Thanks!
How are your okras and heat loving plants so big? When did you plant them??
It always helps us novice to see you, as a pro, go through similar fails. I don't wish it on you, but it sure helps me feel like I'm not alone 😅
Hi Angela such a lovely tour and detailed explanation of your spring garden. Yes the weather & seasonal change plays a big difference. This year I’m pre sprouting my ranunculus in seed trays. Last year I had a poor showing. I wondered if just planting them out just wasn’t right that season. I agree with you on garlic even though I’m in Australia. My garlic sprouted looked great come our spring in September it came down with rust & failed.
Angela help please? How often should i water a young potted pomegranate tree in a clay 15 inch pot?? For now into the summer in Chandler, AZ. Thanks
What kind if of mikweed did you use and where did you get it, please? Is it too late to plant it now?
The way you picked up the fake snake 😂 thanks for clarifying
Although I’m in east Texas I love your channel
I grow year round and also created and am working on my patio garden
I found this year i challenged myself and started putting tomatoes out in Feb and yes I had to protect them at times and I started putting peppers out in March
Your right adjust adapt
Thanks for the flower encouragement as well
I loved the format of this video Angela! I felt like I got to walk through your garden with you and see some of the challenges you’re having that I am as well.
Hi thanks for the tour so lovely! Where did you get your arched metal trellis the you used for the beans? Thank you
I’ve had many of the same issues here in Southern California. My peach and nectarine bloomed early with the early heat, but caught a later frost and I lost all the fruit. Same thing happened last year. Though we didn’t get the extreme early heat last year. My onions and garlic are not ready yet and I have high hopes. The leaks are absolutely beautiful and giant.
Lost a lot of plants and now many of my leaves have a strange speckling like leaf miner but speckled not lines! Palm Desert ~ 109F!🏜️🌵🌴🙏🏻👩🏼🌾🥵
That didn't look like snapdragon foliage to me. ?? Tulips maybe?
YAY!! MILKWEED!! A gal, Jo's TX Butterfly Garden, has massive (to me) Monarch caterpillars and chrysalises in her garden. They made their chrysalises on the under lip of some of the big pots of milkweed. So cool.
Where did you get your info on the butterfly puddles? It's my understanding that they like a damp sand not a puddle.
south Florida here – my sweet peas didnt make it past 6 inches before they fried – way too hot down here. the Thai Blue Butterfly Pea Flower are heat tolerant and last throughout our scolding hot summers.
We live in the NW of AZ and we here at 3,000-3,500' elevation hit 95 today and it is said we will touch 99 tomorrow. Whew! This is hopefully temporary and will last 4-5 more days and then back to the 80s I hope. Hard as I have seedling hardening off (going on 12 days now so still have time but gee..) and in the house still developing a true set of four leaves. Soon and then heat. Maybe just gradual and in shade a bit. I do have seedling corn and also Sunflowers. The garlic looks fine and the onions good too. Tomatoes have flowers and I have baby Bell Peppers. Cucumber seedlings I had from seed i germinated inside – transplanted then a week later both died. Happens. I had a Bonanza Peach in Eastern TN a number of years ago in a half barrel. Loved it.
So nice to see how beautiful a garden can be in Arizona.
My tomatoes have done so well this year except for the fact that I have been attacked by a plague of stink bugs and I can't get rid of them. They have also been getting attacked by birds but I don't blame them with how dry it's been. My onions haven't done well and I'm really just letting them sit there and bloom atp. My cilantro bolted very early and I really miss having it fresh from the garden. My carrots have done surprisingly well though and I love that they act as a ground cover for my chile plants. Can't wait to see what I can grow over the summer especially with the wetter monsoon forecasted.
You could tie back or stake that fig branch away from your roses.