Welcome to the thoughts and photos of FLYDDW. Texas, New Jersey, and Arizona living.

I have been experimenting with a small garden in the backyard.  This is the third iteration.  Here in Phoenix, we get a lot of sun.  Plants love sun.  However, what we don't get it water.  Plants hate no water.  There are lots of rocks just under the surface of the ground.  Plants hate rocks.

Iteration one was to buy some seeds and plant them in pots with soil from Home Depot. 6 pots and some flower seeds.  A few of them grew to flowers, but mostly unsuccessful.  Just could not keep up watering them with my work schedule.

Iteration two was to dig a 2 x 3 foot area in the ground, and add soil mixed with the dug dirt.  More flower seeds and some onions.  Got about 3 "foot and a half" flowers and no onions.  Same problem - could not keep up with the watering.

This time (currently), I made a 10 x 8 foot bed in the very back of the yard, close to our cinderblock fence.  I put it there for a couple of reasons:
- it's close to the irrigation I put in
- it's kinda shaded by a tree
- after 4 pm, it's shaded by the fence

I purchased these plants:  Cherry and Romano tomatoes, eggplant, strawberries, onions, and squash.
I bought these seeds:  more onions, watermelon, cucumber, sunflowers, carrots, beets, wildflowers, and okra..

I put the plants along one side of the garden, and put seeds everywhere else.  I also put in two sprayers connected to the irrigation - so that it would get water everyday.

Over the last two months, things are doing great!  The sunflowers are as tall as I am, and have these huge 7 inch wide flowers.  The cucumbers are growing fine - although not a lot of them.  The tomatoes are also growing well - just not very big.  The strawberries also grew well, but just like everything else, not very big.  They were still very delicious.

The squash is taking over the garden!!!  It's has two arms about 12 feet long now.  Couple of veggies on the vine, but not ready to pick.  What didn't do so well was the watermelon - in two months, just over 2 inches tall.

Also, the okra, string beans, and onions are not doing well.  I'll post some picture next time.