Arcadia Edible Tour: Part 2

Earlier this week, I shared with you the first garden on the Arcadia Edible Tour.  It was just wonderful to see the Sweet Life Garden in person.

However, we had to tear ourselves away from the first garden because there were more to see…

We stopped by Larry’s “Living the Dream Micro Farm”.  

Like many of the gardens we visited, Larry had chickens.

But, what really caught my attention was his row of trash can compost bins.  

Each trash can was filled with compost in a different stage.  The trash cans are re-purposed by the City of Phoenix and are available to their residents for $5 a bin.   Other cities offer free or inexpensive trash cans or compost bins.  Check your local city’s website under waste management to see what they offer.

Larry loved talking about his composting.  He primarily uses chicken manure, coffee ground and leaves.  It takes approximately 2 1/2 months from start to finish according to Larry.

Larry had huge tomato plants growing, heavily laden with fruit (yes, tomatoes are technically a fruit).

After leaving Larry’s garden, my mother asked to stop by Baker’s Nursery, which is her favorite place to buy vegetables.  Baker’s is the favorite nursery of locals and is located on 40th Street, South of Indian School Rd.

The problem with me going to a nursery as nice as Baker’s, is that I become like a child in a candy store.

I always come home with plants and seeds.  In this case, I bought more bush beans for my garden along with some perennial flowers and Angelita Daisy.

Back on tour, we saw some great examples of vegetables being grown.

Eggplant.

Aren’t these cucumber vines impressive?  The trellis is made up of rebar and wire mesh.

I think cucumber flowers are so pretty, don’t you?

I do love the bright colors of blanket flower, which attract pollinators to the vegetable garden.

I think vegetables are beautiful.

This may look like a green tomato – but it isn’t.  It’s a tomatillo.

Zucchini is so impressive in the vegetable garden. They grow so quickly and get so big.  I have them growing my garden too.  Now, I just have to get a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake so my kids will eat it 😉

I haven’t grown strawberries in my garden, although they are my favorite fruit. I spent time in Germany as a child with my grandparents who had a huge strawberry garden and one of my favorite memories is chasing the rabbits away.

I may have to try growing some next year.

In addition to fruit and vegetables, we did see a beautiful lily pond…  

And something quite unexpected…

That’s the thing with garden tours, you never know what you will see…

As you can tell, we were enjoying ourselves very much.

There was so much to see, that I still have one more post showing you some of our favorite parts of a few more gardens.

So come on back….you hear?

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."