Desert Gardening in Borrego Springs

Borrego Desert Gardeners Join us on Facebook

If you enjoy gardening in the desert, or if you think you might, then the Desert Gardeners will be just the place to meet others who share your passion, to learn from each other, and to share what you know. Everyone interested in gardening is invited to this fun, free, and casual group.

The Gardeners Club meets monthly on the second Friday at 10 a.m. through March. Please visit ABDNHA's Activity Calendar and our Borrego Gardeners Facebook Page for up-to-date information about our upcoming meetings.

This desire for the gardeners club grew out of a small group last year who worked together to care for ABDNHA’s Borrego Botanical Garden. We worked weekly on our own schedules to keep the garden tidy—trimming, weeding, raking, picking up, and occasionally gathering for a casual potluck lunch in the garden.

The Desert Gardeners is a wider group gathering, where we bring our own folding chairs and share information and experiences on topics of interest to the group—such as fall plantings, vegetable gardening, soil, irrigation, composting, native plants in the garden, and even garden art and creative garden projects. Sometimes we visit gardens and meet there.

If you enjoy gardening in the desert, or if you think you might, then ABDNHA's new group of Borrego Desert Gardeners will be just the place to meet others who share your passion, to learn from each other, and to share what you know. Enter your name and email address below and we will be put you on our email list:

Fall Vegetable Gardening Late Spring Gardening Flowers of the Desert Garden

Desert Living LATE SPRING GARDENING
By Joan Putney and Betsy Knaak
The Borrego Springs low desert has two distinct gardening seasons, the fall when many winter vegetables can be planted, and the hot summer season beginning in late March and into April, when melons, basil, squash, zinnias, marigolds, cactus, and new citrus trees can be planted.

APRIL
• Citrus: New citrus trees can be planted this month, and established trees should be fertilized.
• Landscape trees, shrubs, cacti and succulents can still go in, early in the month, so that roots get established before summer.

• Seeds or transplants of cantaloupe, jicama, lima beans, okra, basil and oregano can be set out in the warm-season garden.

• Taken from Old Wives’ Lore for Gardeners: On marigolds, “Both the aroma and the excretions from the roots are invaluable, whether in flower or vegetable garden or in the greenhouse.” Two packets of seeds are currently in the sprout stage amongst my vegetables!
• Around town in landscape: Desert gardens bloom this month with lush roses, sunny palo verde trees, and brilliant cactus blossoms. Watch for the deep purple-blue of the indigo bush.

Photo of Indigo Bush, Betsy’s Garden.

MAY
• Time to mulch. A two- or three-inch layer will conserve water, keep roots cooler during summer, deter weeds, and looks good, too. Use compost, chopped bark, pebbles, gravel, even straw. Remember to keep mulch away from stems and trunk, however. Don’t forget to mulch tomato plants.
• Now is the time to adjust irrigation in preparation for the warmer months ahead.
• If you have established palm trees, feed them this month.
• Start an Ocotillo by simply cutting off a branch and planting. Water until you are sure it is a living plant and taper off gradually. Water recently transplanted Ocotillos weekly until established.

• Let some of your cool season flowers and vegetable go to seed. Collect by tapping the heads inside a paper bag. A favorite is Fennel. Use the seeds for planting and for seasoning potato or slaw salads.
• Around town in landscape: Look for the lovely blue-gray blooms of Smoke Trees and the orchid-like blossoms of Desert Willow to be coming in along with the heat of early summer.

Photo of Desert Willow, Betsy’s Garden.

FALL VEGETABLE GARDENING IN THE DESERT
By Betsy Knaak

October is the prime month to begin thinking about planting a vegetable garden in Borrego Springs. A vegetable garden makes sense, especially during a time of ever-rising gasoline and food prices. It pays to shop in your own garden!
If you had a garden last season, the soil has rested over the summer period—irrigation to the vegetable garden has been turned off, the soil enhanced, watered, and then covered with plastic to sterilize under the desert’s hot summer sun.

Late August-September: Often the tendency is to plant too early in our low desert (Zone 13) garden. We may experience a late hot spell that destroys tender shoots of seeds planted too early. Rather than starting seeds in the garden bed, use flats or used six-pac containers to start seeds. Leave these outside, lightly covered, in the shade, and keep them moist. Soon the seedlings will appear. By the time October comes, you will have a nice selection of little vegetable plants to put into raised beds. Remember, vegetables need six to eight hours of sunlight per day, so choose your location carefully.

This is the time to plant herbs: chives, cilantro, dill, fennel, parsley, sage, or lavender. Herbs can be started from seed in small containers or flats. Now is also the time to plant beets, carrots, turnips, and radishes. Be cautious with radishes. Plant a few seeds each week as they grow rapidly. Plant these seeds in the main vegetable plot. (Don’t start them in flats.) As soon as your flat seedlings are about four inches tall and look vigorous, transplant them into the bed (Nov).

ABDNHA SCHOOL GARDEN
Borrego Springs Middle School

Swiss chard grows great! It’s delicious and many prefer it over spinach. It is packed with nutrients, has gorgeous shiny leaves, which now come in many colors, and it is a clean, insect-free plant. The leaves keep growing after each cutting. Harvest the first leaves last December and still be picking into early summer! We encourage you to try Swiss chard in your Borrego Springs or other low desert garden! Arugula and kale are additional options for greens that grow here.

In the ABDNHA Store

ABDNHA

Join Now!

Bok choy is another excellent fall plant that is delicious in salads and stir-fry dishes. It can be expensive and exotic in the grocery store, but is an easy, fast grower in Borrego’s sandy soil. Left to flower, the yellow blooms are attractive to pollinating bees and other beneficial insects.

Green onions can be started in flats or sown directly into the garden in October or November. Be patient, they take time, but are well worth it. They are a good “beginner” crop for new gardeners and are one of the more rabbit-resistant food crops in the desert. Bulb onions do well also. We put in sets in fall, just be patient; they take about five months.

These vegetables can be attractive to insects: cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli to a lesser extent. We are not proponents of using insecticide in the garden, so include only a few of these plants and see how you do. We’ve found broccoli to be more resistant to insects here than cabbage. Even so, we’ve had good luck with both red and green cabbage, several varieties of broccoli, and cauliflower. We have started these both from seed in late summer or September, and have also gone the way of purchasing starts if we didn’t get going with seeds in time. The latest we have planted cabbage, cauliflower, or broccoli starts here wasJanuary 4, with gave us harvests in mid-March. This is a little late, but can be done successfully!