Garden Week #8: Never Give Up

Well, I didn't have any more casualties this week. I think my plants have been confused by the weather though. 95 degrees one day, 68 degrees the next. Is it summer? Is it spring? Poor little plants.

I got especially discouraged this week though-- my friend Kristi posted pics here of her own garden. If you check out her pictures you'll notice that she has a plethora of healthy-looking little green plants, and her tomatoes are humongous already. Normally, comparing gardens wouldn't make any sense at all, but you see, Kristi and I planted some of the same stuff within about a week of each other, and she lives just down the street from me. Same weather and everything. So she and I compared notes this week, and this is what is different about our gardens:

1. Kristi used regular fill dirt + miracle gro for her plants, while I used the bagged square foot gardening soil.

2. She planted a lot more of everything than I did.

3. She has a drip system that waters her plants every morning, while I have to go out and water mine by hand (guessing to make sure I get the right amount).

4. Our backyards face opposite directions, and her garden is on the east side of the yard, while mine in on the west. It looks like my garden gets a good deal more sun.

So several possibilities for problems there. But in the spirit of never giving up, I have given my plants extra water (if they are getting even more sun and it's been 95 degrees, they might be drying out pretty fast). I also planted a whole bunch of seeds again where we lost them. Every planting expert for AZ says that mid-April is too late to start everything I planted, but what the heck. It can't hurt, right?