How much time I'm in the garden depends on the weather. In good weather I might spend 20 hrs., if too hot or cold, just what it takes to get by. I garden in the ground but also have 150 or so pots.(Husband counted them once but have added since then.) I water pots by hand, most everything else by zoned watering system ran by garden hoses.

Gardening is a huge interest so mostly it's hobby. Getting through the summer is work. We have a fairly large yard of which about half is husband's interest and maintenance.

I wonder how many gardener's are working with native plants and how many are struggling with exotics? Who is trying to create Ohio, or IN, or IL, etc, in the desert?

I can answer your question re: myself. Sometimes I'm convinced that containers are the way to go to avoid the alkaline soil, but at other times I think using the native soil is essential to capture all of the micro-organisms and micronutrients found in the soil.

With this in mind, I've recently thought that mixing potting soil and "cooked" native soil is the best potting mix ASSUMING that you use acidified irrigation water all the time (if you don't, the pH of the mix will rise above neutral...) I try to add a cap full of concentrated sulfuric acid to my 55 ga bucket of irrigation water.) I need to buy an acid injector to make my life easier...

So far, I haven't made my "cooked" native soil for my blended potting soil; I'm waiting to get the ambition :) However, all of this preparation and soil chemistry has me a little dissatisfied as a gardener here- kind of like, I'm mad that I have to do all this work when other people (in other areas) just dig a simple hole in the ground and have success.

That's why chatting on gardener's forum is such a relief and encouragement to me.

~10 hours

Ground -- it's as much about the landscape as the plants, though I do have about 60 potted young Agaves as well, with the notion that many will see ground in the coming years as they grow large enough.

Drip.

I love working my garden. It is my favorite form of relaxation, even with pickax in hand.

Judy! 150+ containers?! What's in 'em? I have mostly veggies in mine. And mostly kale at that. It seems every time I stopped at a nursery, I bought kale. This should be a super healthy winter. :o)

Is anyone planting a fruit tree?

Anywhere from zero to 50 hours a week, depending on what needs to be done.

I use dirt. I don't worry about the pH, either the plants like my dirt or they die.

I do have raised beds with a mix of compost and my dirt for vegetables.

Watering: drip system!

Doing a way overdue yard cleanup, shredding prunings and sifting the compost heaps that are ready for it.

Adding the siftings to one of the veggie beds to get it ready for spring, adding the shredded prunings to the mulched path around the other veggie bed whihc already has the winter leafy things planted.

lazygardens, I agree about the dirt: Live in it or die!

tomatofreak, I have cactus and other succulents, sword ferns, tropical bird of paradise, asparagus ferns, blah, blah,...Most are on the patios and across the back of Kenny's workshop. I try stuff in them, some lives, some dies. Some of my pots are empty as the places I have them don't encourage good plant life - too hot, too much sun.

I don't have much luck with growing actual food. I've tried but don't seem to have the knack or desire. Even fruit trees conspire against me. I keep trying stone fruits and the weather, etc, keeps trying to kill them. Guess who wins? :-( We do manage to grow citrus and we have a very tasty apricot tree, but we have a nasty canker that jumps on anything that's weather stressed, and the tree is dying, a limb at a time.

I also agree about the dirt. I do mix native (?) soil with compost or bagged garden soil most of the time when I plant. Parts of this yard are like clay when wet and the rest is super compacted from years of irrigation. It's salty, for sure, and not really friendly to acid-loving plants so I don't venture into exotic 'experiments' - at least not often.

Here's another question: What do you fertilize with?

Fertilizer? Mostly nothing ... the lawn is buffalo grass which is low-need compared to Bermuda. The desert landscaping is natives.

What little the vegetable areas get fertilized is with whatever's in the compost, and soil sulfur.

Lazy, interesting to hear you mention you have a buffalo grass (warm season type) lawn. That's kind of unusual here in the low desert, I believe. I know they use it a lot more in higher altitude deserts like New Mexico and Colorado. I have a test plant of it in a pot in my backyard. It's still green, despite the cold weather, while my bermuda has gone dormant now.

I planted sprigs of a buffalo grass variety at my brother's house in Denver a while back. They did good.

RichSD - I think I have one of the few buffalo grass lawns in Phoenix.

http://lazygardens.blogspot.com and look for the tags "Buffalo Grass"

Here is a link that might be useful: My Buffalo Grass Blog

Love your blog, Lazygardens! I want that grass!

I've never calculated the amount of time I spend in the garden/yard, but I know at least half the time is spent walking around day dreaming of what I want to do (instead of what I should be doing :)!

Fun question and discussion! I'll spend as much time in the garden as my schedule/travel allows, hah. When the daylight is long enough, I'm definitely out there for an hour, maybe two, before work, and then again after work, plus several hours on the weekend. For me, it's pure fun.

My citrus are on drip irrigation and they get soaked twice a week and are amazing, bountiful producers. Everything else gets hand watered by me, which is why I mostly grow plants that love it here, not plants that *can* be grown here. Lots of aloes, cacti, succulents and low water shrubs and flowers. I do quite a few fluffy containers in winter (geraniums/petunias/pansies), and maybe one or two with vincas or something in summer.

When my mom last visited she counted 275 pots on the patio, and I've added a few since then, oink oink oink. Most of those are succulents and cacti, with the fluffy things I mentioned above. Anything that gets hand watered by me, gets a pretty strict diet--I try to water once a week or less even in summer. That way when I'm on the road for work/fun they don't really miss me and I don't have to worry (hate that about gardening--worrying about the plants when I'm supposed to be on vacation!).

For the leafy things like emu bushes (Eremophila), rosemary, sages, nicotiana, oleanders, hopseed, hollyhocks, and lantana only get water once every ten days when they're established. It keeps rot away and it keeps me from worrying when I'm on the road.

Fun discussion! Thanks again for starting and contributing to it. Happy gardening! Grant

It totally depends on what needs to be done. It can be anywhere from about 4 hrs to 40 hrs per week. I have a 35'X55' fenced vegetable garden and other stuff growing outside. I don't use any pots except for starting some plants and trees. I prefer to mix steer manure and sulfur with the native soil. I also make extensive use of dry land cover crops (medic, barley, and winter rye in winter and sudan grass in summer) when nothing is growing in a wide row to prevent erosion and add organic matter. After use of cover crops you can back off the manure a bit.

Gene

It totally depends on what needs to be done. It can be anywhere from about 4 hrs to 40 hrs per week. I have a 35'X55' fenced vegetable garden and other stuff growing outside. I don't use any pots except for starting some plants and trees. I prefer to mix steer manure and sulfur with the native soil. I also make extensive use of dry land cover crops (medic, barley, and winter rye in winter and sudan grass in summer) when nothing is growing in a wide row to prevent erosion and add organic matter. After use of cover crops you can back off the manure a bit.

Gene

Gene, how do you water such a big plot? What do you grow (and what do you do with that much produce)? And what is "medic"? (Sorry, it is a curiosity thread!)

Lazy, you've really opened my eyes to buffalo grass's adaptability for ultra-hot Arizona. Your story is amazing (and a huge water savings over bermuda if your figures are correct.)

Funny buffalo grass is not promoted by local sod producers. All they offer is bermuda, mostly tiff varieties, overseeded with rye in the winter. I'd be surprised if they even offer zoysia.

Maybe I'll blow everyone's mind and plant a kentucky bluegrass lawn here in Phoenix (just kidding...)

Rich - the heat-loving variety of Buffalo grass, UC Verde, hasn't been produced as sod yet. We planted from plugs, which is not as convenient as rolling out sod.

You can get the plugs from Civana Nursery in Tucson. That would eliminate the rush we had, trying to order before it got too hot to ship.

i'd say in the peak i spend 15 hours a week i have 2 plots at a community garden plus my home garden and lawn i love being out there even in the heat of the summer as for our soil well i just keep adding coffe grounds constantly both for the acidity and nitrogen seems to be working so far as my veggies just keep doing better and better every year and free is the best reason of all

Tomatofreak,

I'm on a well so the water is free and I only water the vegetable wide rows as needed to keep the soil moist deep under mulch (alfalfa hay and/or compost), The cover crops/green manures I use in the wide rows that aren't growing edibles are drought resistant and work well for Phoenix so they get very little water. For non-legume cover crops, I find sudan grass best for warm season cover and barley for cool season. Legume covers I use are medic and yellow clover. Medic is a type of clover very well adapted to arid areas. It's used extensively in North Africa based on what I've read. It thrives very well here in the valley.
As far as what I do with all the vegetables, well it's not like the entire area is planted with edibles. I rotate everything annually, and for every row of edibles I have two rows of cover/green manure. So when a vegetable enters a new row the row has already had a year of legumes for nitrogen fixation and a year of non-legumes for organic matter. By doing this you really don't have to amend the soil much except for a little sulfur to keep the pH down. I still get a lot of vegetables and usually give away any surplus, however; I have sold some Asian vegetables like yard-long beans to restaurants in the past.

Gene