Garden Shade

Shari puts the final touches on the first, middle sheet of
shade cloth. There will be two more sheets.

Morning gardening

It seems to me that pretty much everything in the desert appreciates a little shade, so an integral part of any vegetable garden is shade.

Shade fabric is a popular item here in Tucson. Trouble is, so are wind gusts.

The first of three sheets is up. Shari folded and sewed each six-foot wide end, reinforcing it with cotton twill, then hammered in ten rivet-like grommets on each end. Meanwhile, your author strung seven lines of rope east-west across the length and the fabric is tucked north-south over and under the ropes.

Hog wire serves as a sturdy and movable frame for the
scarlet runner beans.

We had a nice windy rain storm last night. Four of us sat in front of our house, under the eves, watching the spectacle, feeling the heavy raindrops on our legs, smelling the humid air, and watching sheets and bolts of lightning over town. It was a feast for all of the senses; way better than anything TV can offer.

We watched the single length of shade fabric billowing in the wind, barely held by the rope matrix. The fabric and its grommets held.

Today, Shari is working on the next two sheets. They will be tucked over-and-under in an opposite pattern to the middle sheet, which hopefully will make the rope matrix more secure.

In the meantime, Shari is turning the desert green. Shari has a touch for growing basil. Basil loves heat and sun. How she got it to grow on overcast, chilly Whidbey Island is beyond me. She has three kinds flourishing here. Their flavor is very pungent.

They say that about food grown in the desert. It has
intense flavor. You get less product because of the intense climate, but it's way more concentrated.

The scarlet runner beans are beginning to run. Shari started the seedings in pots in the backyard where there's shade. Transplanted into the garden, they struggled from shock and sun. Now they are reaching and climbing up the hog wire frame.

Melons and cucumbers are also thriving. We've been eating and giving away cherry tomatoes. The little peach and loquat trees are hanging in there as we set up trellises to train their branches to create an espalier.

I wonder if they have slugs in the Sonoran Desert. They were our nemesis on Whidbey. Here it may be grasshoppers.

FOOTNOTE:  Shari's 4,000+ sq.ft. garden on Whidbey Island:

Three varieties of apple on an espalier

Four levels of terraces.

Looking up towards the house

Grape vines grown from sticks; cuttings from
autumn pruning at the local vineyard near Langley.