Contact the County Cooperative Extension Service or Master Gardeners. They have the most relevant info.

There's quite a bit you can grow now (and even more in winter). Here's a link to an offshoot from Desert-Tropicals.com that has a nice list of what to do and what to plant or sow for ornamental, or culinary, gardens. It's geared towards Phoenix but most of it would be applicable to Yuma as well.

There is also a book called "Extreme Gardening" by David Owens which focuses on raising food in the SW Deserts. It's a great place to start.

Let us know what you do and how it does for you. It's always fun to compare notes and get updates.

Good luck and happy gardening,
Grant

Here is a link that might be useful: Phoenix gardening calendar

Yuma is about the same as us here in Indio CA. April is pretty late to be starting things. Okra and egg plant are the only 2 I know of that will really thrive through the whole summer heat. Most everything else will burn before it gets to maturity.
You may want to try putting in a "green manure" crop to help your soil. I like clover and annual rye grass mix. Alfalfa in the mix is great if you can get the seed. Then look ahead to starting your planting in mid august for summer varieties and mid September for winter varieties.
And a tip for tomatoes, start them in October, protect them from frost in winter and as soon as it warms up in spring, you will have big vines ready to load up with great tomatoes.

Hello,
I have 2 gardens in Yuma. I grow alot of melons and watermelons. Lima Beans, Crowder Peas/Blackeye Peas/Southern Peas. Pole beans. Tomato and egg plant. Peppers. Squash. Fruit trees I have apple, peach, fig, plum, nectarine, orange and tangelo, avocado. Don't really believe the "heat tolerant" you will see in garden catalogues. Start as early as possible. I direct seeded most everything under row covers in January.

Winter time you can go with broccoli, lettuce, spinach, peas, cauliflower. It is nice to grow stuff you can't get from grocery stores at that time too. I grow a lot of asian vegetables in the winter time.

Good luck,it take some learning on how to deal with the heat but it can be done.

Jonny

I live in Yuma and I use http://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/az1005.pdf to keep up with when I am supposed to sew seeds and/or use transplants. Hope this helps.

u might still try cantalope and summer squash too and maybe even watermelons wait another month for pumkins too.

hellbound - did you say we could plant pumpkins in a month??