Experience Nutrition: My First Arizona Spring Home Garden. Steps and Tips to Grow your own Edible Veggies, Herbs, and Flowers.

By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author

I’m very excited to share that this first weekend of Spring 2019, I planted my first “real” edible backyard garden in Phoenix, Arizona. And, I’m happy to share my learning with you.

Honestly, while I feel really confident with guiding people to cook beautiful, tasty farm-to-table plant-based food, I am going out on a limb with sharing my new gardening adventure with you.

When I was a kid, my parents always had a garden and fruit growing in our yard in Dallas, Pennsylvania. I especially remember the asparagus, carrots, cucumbers, and sweet peppers. Plus, we enjoyed all kinds of berries, my favorites being raspberries and strawberries. Today, my 92-year old Dad still gardens in Cocoa Beach, Florida, primarily with his banana and onion crops.

I’ve never grown a ‘real garden’ in Phoenix. Until now.

Melanie’s Personal Goals with the New Edible Garden

Sharing my personals goals with you, which might motivate you to plant your own garden!

Get out of my comfort zone. Do something new, while learning.
Enjoy edible gardening as self care. Time away from the computer. Time out with nature.
Garden-to-Table. Ultimately, enjoy my garden bounty with my culinary creations.

Three Steps to Get Started with an Edible Garden

Since gardening in Arizona is different than the East Coast of the US, I reached out to an expert in the farming and gardening in Phoenix, my friend, Billy Anthony, who is the Garden Operations Manager at The Farm at South Mountain. Billy has been growing at the beautiful The Farm, which is about half-mile from my home for a few years. I admire his passion, knowledge, and hard work ethic and knew that he’d be a talented guide for my small edible garden project.

Step 1: The Elevated Garden.

A few months ago I started researching elevated gardens online and purchased a simple rectangle 22”x 66” wooden garden that is right outside my back patio, on the West side of my home facing the golf course. The first step, was, of course, building the elevated garden. Thanks to Phoenix urban farmer Billy Anthony for assembling it for me and in choosing the right location for the garden, where it will get full sunlight during most of the day.

Step 2: The Right Soil.

Billy guided me to purchase the “right” soil for our Arizona climate. I used two 2cu feet of Kellogg Garden Organics – Organic Plus for the bottom layer of the garden. For the top layer, at Plant Stand, a garden supply store in my neighborhood, purchased two 1.5 cu feet of Fox Farm Ocean Forest Potting Soil, made from earthworm castings and bat guano.

Step 3: What to Plant in the Spring (in Phoenix, Arizona)

In the Arizona desert, right now our local urban farmers are doing their Spring planting, so I took their lead and visited Billy at The Farm at South Mountain to be sure to plant the “correct” veggies, herbs, and edible flowers for this time of year.

Picked up a few Spring goodies from my urban farmer friend Billy Anthony who has been such an inspiration around growing beautiful food.

Herbs: Oregano, Genovese Basil and Amethyst Basil, French Lavender, Flatleaf Italian Parsley
Edible flowers: Viola, Calendula, Snapdragon
Greens: Dandelion
Melon: Sugar Baby Watermelon
Cucumbers: Gherkins
Tomatoes: Blush Tomato
Berry: Pinchuberry

5 Tips on Planting Layout from Phoenix Urban Farmer, Billy Anthony

Since I wanted to get it “right,” Billy gave me a few tips on where to plant the different plants in the garden. A few tips:

Watermelon near the edge of the garden, so it could grow down the side towards the Earth.
Basil plants at the end of the planter, as they will become quite large.
Lavender in the middle surrounded by the edible flowers.
Dandelion greens next to the violas (hope I got that right) to give them a little shade.
Plant larger plants (pichuberry, tomato) in pots to give them room to grow.

Let’s take a closer look at a few of the Plants…

Spring Arizona Garden Day 1: The plants planted into the Elevated Garden, according to the Plan.

And, pausing to enjoy our Arizona sunset with the new Spring Garden. Self care!

Top 5 Basic Edible Gardening Tips from Phoenix urban farmer, Billy Anthony

As a final thought in today’s new Phoenix Backyard Gardening Blog, simple advise from Billy to me, to you…

The right soil.
The right plants at the right time.
Sunshine.
Water.
And, I’ll add, have fun!

My final reflection on Day 1 of my Spring 2019 garden.

Enjoyed the process of learning the steps and planning to plant my little garden.
Loved being outside in my backyard, with a purpose, and enjoying the self care sunset with my new garden.
Felt a sense of new accomplishment.

I’ll keep you posted as my gardening adventure evolves.

I’ll be using the #ediblegardentotable so we can easily find the edible garden progress.

If you are in the Phoenix area and would like to meet Billy Anthony, we are co-hosting a Spring Farm-to-Table Cooking Class at The Farm at South Mountain, April 7, 2019, 11am-1pm.