painting my thumb green

[hey_renee]

When we bought our house, we had big plans for it. The majority of those plans have been put on hold due to things like lack of funds, time, and energy.
One of those plans was to have a vegetable garden, and an overall enjoyable yard.
The outdoor part was a major confidence killer for me. I've never had to maintain an entire yard of my own before.

Comments

[greyhowl]

I don't have any gardening advice. We are doing our first veggie and flower garden this year! We have to wait though...we had snow a few days ago (it didn't stay, thank goodness)!

We compost...we put our food waste into an old tupperware and when it's full, dump it into the composter in the yard.

[hey_renee]

is composting hard?

[greyhowl]

nope! you'll get in the habit of storing your food waste quickly. we don't do anything fancy with the composter either, just ignore it til it turns into "dirt"...you can throw in a few worms. i know some people do fancier things.

[hey_renee]

I read about it and it seems simple, but I'm scared to try! Getting the right balance seems like it might be tough.

[hey_renee]

I kill every kind of plant. Though I was once able to keep a small tree alive for a couple years.

My mom gave us a bunch of little booklets about Arizona plants landscaping. After looking at that and doing research online, I made a little plan for our yard. I designed it so we could do it in phases. I was going to try to talk to someone at the local nursery to see what they thought of my plan.
I had a hard time finding local groups or community gardens ( I was hoping I could have someone mentor me, ha!)

What makes potted plants such a pain?

[hey_renee]

Ah, that all makes sense. Thank you!
I was thinking about starting with a houseplant, just to get used to taking care of something (that doesn't cry/whine/meow when it needs anything, ha!) Then move to the small flower bed, and slowly take over the rest of the yard in phases.

I found and joined the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. They are a friendly and eager bunch. I'm kinda excited about it.

[alison_in_oh]

There is a permaculture guild in phx you might want to look up for advice

[hey_renee]

I found the permaculture guild! Thank you! They are quite active and offer lots of classes!

The city sells big bins for composting for $5. I've been meaning to go pick one up, but I need to find someone with a truck.

We were planning to build a raised bed in one side of the backyard. Matt is really good at staying on top of watering. I can never remember (which is probably why everything DIES on me). But I'm a bit concerned about the sun. How do I keep things from cooking before I even harvest them? How much sun exposure did your veggie garden get?

[alison_in_oh]

Our garden fried at the peak of summer, I think you need shade cloth to keep going after a certain point. But just like a heavily watered lawn will stay green, plants can handle a lot of heat stress if they have enough water.

[hey_renee]

What about something like this over the veg garden area?