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21 Feb ’12
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i've spent a lot of time in san bernardino county, that can be pretty dry and remote too.
i also garden in a very hot and sunny location but i think the difference between your space and mine is humidity. your area is quite dry and mine is pretty thick most of the year.
recommend you either keep an active compost routine going or failing that, always have a bag of mulch handy as you'll need it to prevent the sun turning your soil to concrete.
also, since you want veggies, you better make sure you understand the water requirements for each plant, don't just wing it. cucumbers won't have any tolerance for any lack of water in that environment and your spinach won't want any regular direct hot sun. it's going to be tricky but if you mulch like a mofo and water those beds deep twice each week it should be a-ok.
21 Feb ’12
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Thanks for the tips khun! This whole season is pretty much one big experiment for me. I've been reading up a little on what I'm planting, and as you said, the sun on the leafy green stuff is my biggest worry. My dad is retired and basically just hangs out doing stuff around the house all day so until I get that drip system in I guess I'll have him watering as needed. In regards to the direct sunlight on the spinach or lettuce or whatever I have a side yard that is shady most of the day (pic):
Once I get finished with the planter I was thinking of working on the side yard with the same concept. Hopefully it will work out well. I noticed this morning my dog decided to "investigate" the new beds so looks like my first priority is some type of fencing though lol!
21 Feb ’12
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Oh and thanks Al!
21 Feb ’12
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take note of the suns direction up and over your house each day. put those smaller leafy greens in a place where they'll get sun but not when it is directly overhead. use a shade cloth that still lets sun through if you need to.
put the cukes where they will get lots of sun but nowhere near the leafy greens because they will grow up and over everything. i just let my cukes run and they will get 7 or 8 ft tall and have ten cukes growing on them at a time. you have to monitor the amount of water they get very closely at that point because they will pull any moisture out of the soil while the sun looks like it's wilting the leaves. don't worry though the leaves will recover overnight while it's cool and spring right back before morning to soak up more sun.
living where you are, do you ever see any bees? i doubt you have any useful ones there so you may need to plant lots of red blue and yellow flowers around the yard before you get the cukes started otherwise you won't get any cukes unless you hand pollinate and for me that takes a couple hours each day (20 humongous cuke plants with perhaps 10 or 15 new flowers each day,each)
21 Feb ’12
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i have to water my cukes every day while they are fruiting btw. roughly 1 liter per plant or else the fruits will shrivel up real quick.
20 Feb ’12
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Yep. San Bernardino county. We get LOTS of sun.
I grew up in Colton and Victorville myself.
22 Feb ’12
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Looks good!
Follow the planting guides that are out there for the SqFt gardening method. Those raised beds will fill up with a quickness, and you don't want to overcrowd your plants.
Looks like you've got some decently shaded areas in your yard. Those are the areas I'd stick the leafy greens. You still want them to get sunlight, but not so much they get cooked and die. Also, check out a few different varieties. You might have trouble growing normal spinach where you're at during the middle of summer, but something like New Zealand Spinach has a much better heat tolerance, and might work well for you.
Just treat this year as a learning experience. You'll probably have some failures, but don't let it get you down. Learn from them, and next year your garden will be that much better. Good luck, and have fun with it!
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