Desert Living: Community Garden
February 21, 2021 
Casting a spell in the garden (photo credit: John Delberta)
One week, snow. The next week, summer. This sudden snow storm at the end of January sent us scurrying to cover the vegetables with extra row covers. Two days later it was 70 degrees again. When most days bring a 40-degree swing in temperature, I'm amazed that the plants manage as well as they do.
Our community garden here in Cascabel is a place for people to work together. Instead of being organized around individual plots, we all cooperate to grow one big garden. Every Wednesday morning we meet, with masks, to do another week's work. It is one of the few things on my calendar that I rarely erase.
Garlic and onions are our no-fail crops every year.
It always seem like magic when good things to eat pop out of the ground. Especially when we uncovered those snowy row covers a few days later to find this!
A tribe of buttercrunch
But there has been plenty of behind-the-scenes work to help that magic along: lots of digging and planting last fall, and weeding and watering and mulching since; the infrastructure of our well and greenhouse; hauling manure, ordering seeds. This leads me to think that perhaps all magic is a combination of preparation and good timing, mixed with the ability to receive.
We are now harvesting buttercrunch, romaine, arugula, spinach, kale, cilantro, chard, and pea shoots. If the aphids leave us someting to eat we might have broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower soon.
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(Several people have asked for more posts about our life here in the Sonoran Desert, so I am making several short entries this week about our daily routine along with some "news" and unusual events. Next post: Guess what we did this winter?)