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“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
- Audrey Hepburn

There is nothing like a global pandemic and empty grocery store shelves to inspire a garden. Instead of being inspired to plant actual food that would sustain us, what do I want to plant right now? Flowers. Colorful, fragrant, impractical flowers. I hope that my food-minded husband will have some suggestions for fruits or veggies. This gardening “date” will probably be more of a planning conversation. I’ll be happy if we can agree on some things to plant, even if I end up doing the planting. My husband doesn’t do yard work. He’ll wash windows and repair things, but he is against landscaping. We have a backyard with plenty of places to cultivate but he would be just as happy with an ultra modern concrete pad. To be fair, I am just as lazy when it comes to gardening. I struggle with watering plants in a desert. If the plants can’t grow with just our flood irrigation, they aren’t meant to be in our yard. We don’t have a drip system. We don’t have sprinklers. This means that my version of gardening is more akin to gambling. A few months ago, I cleaned out our shed. I “planted” a survival-of-the-fittest garden by throwing 10-year-old seeds into a bed, raking, and throwing some soil on top. What survived? Arugula. So now we have fresh Arugula seeds that I will actually plant this year. Let’s see what other seeds we have on hand. Stay tuned. I’m going to go try out this date with Fitz.

I’m back. Yep, that was the fastest “date” ever. I pulled out some seed packets and the planting calendars. Here in Phoenix, we use the Urban Farm’s Low Desert Planting & Harvest Calendar for veggies and the Flower Planting Guide for the Low Desert (yes, for flowers). Fitz and I sat on the patio, drank a beer each, and talked about foods that we eat most often. Onions, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, chiles, & cilantro. I think we missed the window for onions and potatoes, but I have some green onion seeds so we decide to at least try them. I already had seeds for chiles and cilantro. We talked about growing potatoes. I think you need a container that you can lift from the bottom to get the potatoes. I am second-guessing getting rid of that old car tire, but did we really want to eat something that grew up surrounded by a car tire? No. Potatoes will wait. So that was our gardening date. We at least selected food to plant together. I hemmed and hawed about leaving the house for non-essentials, but finally ventured out to pick up a couple of tomato transplants. I found some strawberry transplants and mint while I was there. We could normally use the Phoenix Public Library's seed library to get additional seeds, but the library is currently closed as part of the effort to #flattenthecurve. I definitely recommend the seed library for your future gardening.

Along with planting some veggies, I am attempting a cutting garden. I love having fresh flowers in the house. In taking limited trips out, I’ve missed my cheap $3.99-4.99 bunch of alstroemeria from the grocery store. They are my go-to flowers because they open slowly and last for two weeks. Having a vase of fresh flowers on the table makes me feel spoiled. During my early subbing and teaching days, flowers would never have been in the budget. If I can afford flowers, I’m living large. How much cheaper will it be if I can find flowers that grow in the backyard? Realistically, I won’t save any money growing flowers this year, but if I figure out what grows and save seeds and bulbs, it will be an investment in future savings.

Ranunculus Tecolote® Pastel Mix from EasyToGrow.

I don’t think I had ever seen ranunculus flowers before and when I realized they can grow here, I had to try them. I planted these bulbs in late January and they are coming along. I follow and have been inspired by Sweet Life Garden’s sweet peas. Her roses are amazing. Roses grow well in Phoenix, but I worry about pruning and thorns so I thought I’d start with something smaller. I ordered some of sweet pea, pansy, cosmos, and nasturtium seeds she sourced from Floret Flowers last year. I planted a few around Thanksgiving and they did come up but are still quite small. I’m trying a few more now, but it might be too late in the year. This is an experiment in hope. I believe these flowers will take more watering than I’m willing to invest. I also threw down some marigold seeds. I think the cosmos and marigolds will probably survive my neglectful gardening techniques, but I invoked the date’s theme of “trust” while planting the other seeds.

I’ll update this post later. If our flowers or veggies survive my version of gardening, they are hardy plants!

Tune in soon for Week 12 - Friendship: Plan the perfect 48 hours in your hometown. Create a guide for visitors or create an itinerary for when you can play tourist in your own town.

Week 11 - Trust: Select seeds or transplants for an indoor or outdoor garden and plant them together.