Hi, I'm an established AZ resident but only a year into gardening here. I think it depends on what you're going to grow, but if it's veggies or herbs you might want to do a raised-bed garden with all new soil. Our native soil would need a lot of improvement. You could till but would have to add stuff into it - I have heard numbers like "20% original soil only".

For the chipper and mulching, if you move into a house with established trees then you could surely make mulch from the prunings.

Hi Ladyhmm ,
May I send an early welcome!

I am in Tucson.

Alot of what you use or garden, will depend on the size of yard.

My parents are out on the west side, on 5 acres of land. They have the compost tumbler and LOVE it, and dad just got a tiller at christmas and small green house.

I have never seen a bagged compost I like, so my parents share.. I give them my scraps and get compost in return. :)

The chipper?? pine bark mulch is all over here at Lowes and home Depot... fairly cheap.

Could you explain a little more as to why your not sure to bring these items? Im not sure i understand?

Do you already have an area of town picked out?

Are you worried the tiller would be too noisy?

People mow grass here...

JoJo

Here are some online publications you might find useful.

I moved to Oregon from Phoenix so I did the reverse of what you are doing....

Here is a link that might be useful: UofA gardening publications

Hi JoJo & Grey~ Thanks for responding & for the warm welcome! Much appreciated! Mostly I plan on vegey gardening. My reason for asking about the chipper was whether there would be abundant material to feed thru it. I was thinking mesquite might dull the blades quite fast & that seems to be mostly what I've seen during visits. Lol on the 'lawn mowing' noise comment and I was wondering if it was too warm to really utilize the tumbler?
And thanks for the link buyorsell888- I'll be checkin it out tomorrow after work! Too bad we didn't plan this better-we might've exchanged residences lol. I'm in Tigard on an acre trying to get to Tucson!
Thanks everyone-I really appreciate the help.

ladyhmm here are the two best videos I have ever seen on gardening in our climate.

The videos are done by a UC Dave horticultural professor who is a Master Gardener.

Home Vegetable Gardening Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wZes0AnFKA

Home Vegetable Gardening Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYAO5R9_Lsw&feature=channel

>>I was wondering if it was too warm to really utilize
>>the tumbler?
Are you kidding? Tumblers are awesome here. I would definitely bring the tumbler. Yes it's hot here in the summer, but to make compost you really need 3 things: nitrogen rich stuff (greens) carbon rich stuff (browns) and water. The main advantage of a tumbler is that it limits the amount of water your compost pile loses in the heat here. The stuff stays moist longer and you can get finished compost in 6 weeks no problem. You're not going to be able to do that with a normal compost pile unless you water the heck out of it and work hard to turn it.
I moved here form WA state and I wish I had a shredder. All the trees and bushes here grow way faster than up north. I have a sissoo tree i planted last Feb, and it has doubled in size. I also have a bunch of African sumacs in the backyard that yield a ton of prunnings every year. I have grapevines that need to be pruned every winter and they grow incredibly fast. All these things make awesome mulch. Yes, some of the woods are really dense. You don't have to chip the mesquite, although I doubt that the thinner branches would hurt the shredder at all. Use the bigger branches for fires. I so wish I had a shredder. I keep quail and plan to keep chickens soon, and having a bunch of mulch would be awesome. A tiller is useful here as well since working this clay crap is a pain. I gave away a lot of stuff before I moved and I regret not bringing it.

Definately bring the tiller.

The soil at my place is so rocky I recently bought an electric jack hammer (no joke). Before I bought it my wife and I spent 4 hours digging a hole to plant a fifteen gallon size nectarine tree.

Bring the tiller.......

A chipper is MARVELOUS ... we sometimes chip and shred the neighbor's prunings for more mulch.

Mesquite prunings chip and shred very well - it's not really a problem because the hard wood is in the big branches, and those are for fireplaces.

I don't have a tiller, but I have about 8 compost bins (some are growing tomatoes, two need to be sifted and used on the gardens, the others are still collecting stuff) because it's a huge yard and I'm the "pile it and let it rot" kind of a composter.

Hi there,

I just wanted to chime in and say welcome to the forum and soon welcome to AZ. We hope to see and hear a lot of updates from you as you make the transition and settle in. :)

Autumn through mid-spring is the easy season for many veggies here, so if you end up moving here in summer don't give up (plus there are several plants that love our summers too). There are several books for ornamental and veggie gardening for this reason--any large book store will have them so you should have no problem finding them.

Good luck with the move--it will be fun to see updates on your gardening.

Take care,
Grant