Tips for planting your desert vegetable garden

  • desert vegetable gardening tips
  • April 7, 2013
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  • The hardest part about gardening in the desert is dealing with the summer heat. If your garden does not have afternoon shade, then you will have to make some. Shade cloth is perfect for this, as it provides partial shade to keep plants and soil cooler. It lasts for many years, which makes it a worthwhile investment. Look for the kind offering 30 percent shade.
  • If your pepper and tomato plants are forming fruits with brown bottoms, this is not uncommon for the first summer round. This browning is called blossom end rot, and is caused by uneven watering. All it takes is a little drought stress, and the fruit will not form correctly. The solution is mulching the soil around the plant, and watering sufficiently so plants do not wilt.
  • Zucchini and other large-leafed vegetable plants will often wilt mid-day on a hot afternoon, even if the soil is wet. This is hard to control unless you are using shade cloth. As long as the plant perks up overnight, it will probably be okay. If it does not, check soil moisture, or look for the dreaded vine borer hole in the lower stems.
Blossom end rot
Photo: Linda Strader

Blossom end rot

If your pepper and tomato plants are forming fruits with brown bottoms, this is not uncommon for the first summer round. This browning is called blossom end rot, and is caused by uneven watering. All it takes is a little drought stress, and the fruit will not form correctly. The solution is mulching the soil around the plant, and watering sufficiently so plants do not wilt.

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, Tucson Gardening Examiner

This author has lived in Arizona since 1972 and has been gardening for more than 28 years. A landscape architect and certified arborist, Linda teaches classes for everyone in desert plant care for Green Valley Recreation, and provides services in landscape design. Contact her at Linda...