Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, 2nd Edition

Plant, Grow, and Harvest the Best Edibles for Arizona, Nevada & New Mexico Gardens

Jacqueline Soule

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780760372715
• eBook ISBN:
  9780760372722
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Horticulture
• Index: Biological Sciences

In this updated 2nd edition of Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, you’ll find much-needed advice and practical tips on growing an edible garden, no matter which part of the southwestern US you call home.

Growing in the Southwest isn’t easy. It’s either too hot or too cold and often very dry. The region hosts a range of soils and climate conditions that can be difficult for a gardener to navigate. That’s why this region-specific garden guide is a must-have for every Southwestern gardener!

Botanist Jacqueline Soule simplifies the ins and outs of gardening in the Southwest and serves as your guide to success. Regardless of whether you’re tending an in-ground plot, a small container garden, or a series of raised beds, Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening is an invaluable resource. You’ll find:

• Detailed profiles of over 60 edible plants that thrive in the region’s distinctive growing conditions, including favorites like tomatoes, sweet potatoes, summer squash, hot peppers, and pomegranates—plus popular herbs
• Information on soil preparation, starting seeds, fertilizer tips, and more
• Techniques for safely managing the Southwest’s most troublesome vegetable garden pests
• Helpful planting tips to keep you on track
• Garden maintenance advice to ensure a lush, productive, and high-yielding garden

Regardless of whether you’re a first-time grower or an experienced Master Gardener, the modern varieties and well-researched gardening information found here will have you going from seed to harvest with confidence and know-how.

Southwest Fruit & Vegetable Gardening is part of the regional Fruit & Vegetable Gardening series from Cool Springs Press. Other books in the series include CaliforniaFruit & Vegetable Gardening, Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Gardening, TexasFruit & Vegetable Gardening, and many others.

PART I

GROWING EDIBLES IN THE SOUTHWEST

This variety of chili peppers turns red when ripe.

Your chances of success as a gardener will be far greater if you remember one key fact. Plants are living, breathing organisms—just like humans. Just like humans, plants need food, water, shelter, and air to breathe.

This book covers the topics you need to be a successful gardener in the Southwest.

Gardening within the Southwest—regional differences in soil, climate patterns, rainfall, average temperatures, and so on.

Seasonal gardening—there are five gardening seasons in some areas, and you can make the most of the two main growing seasons.

Garden planning—get the most out of your space, be it large or small.

Soil—critical, and one of the most challenging aspects to gardening in the Southwest.

Selecting plants—varieties best for your Southwest area, whether to buy seeds or seedlings, and how to plant them.

Maintaining the garden—watering techniques, when to fertilize, how to mulch, dealing with pests, and so forth.

Pomegranates require both the heat of summer and chilling temperatures in winter.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Maps

Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) produces a Plant Hardiness Zone Map that indicates the average minimum cold temperatures in the United States, which serves a handy purpose but is not all you need to know when it comes to growing plants in the Southwest.

With wide geographic variation in the Southwest comes vast climate variation. The USDA Zone Map, based only on days of freezing temperatures in a year, offers us fourteen USDA zones in our three states, from Zone 4a to Zone 10b. These zones do not tell the whole story, because we also have searing summer temperatures, single-digit humidity, not to mention constant drying wind and vast mountain ranges that thrust into the sky, changing the weather up and down their slopes. Even within a single city, the zones can vary three notches. In winter are you down along the cold river or up on a south-facing mountain slope? What does the wind do in your yard?

So why print the maps? The USDA maps help you when it comes to selecting fruit trees, and when to plant in each of the five seasonal garden periods. But be warned—USDA maps are based on the amount of cold not heat or aridity, and not every plant you see rated for your specific zone will survive in our challenging and unique climate.

ZONE	Average Minimum Temperature
4 A	-25to-30
4 B	-20to-25
5 A	-15to-20
5 B	-10to-15
6 A	-5to-10
6 B	0to -5
7 A	5to -0
7 B	10to 5
8 A	15to 10
8 B	20to 15
9 A	25to 20
9 B	30to 25
10 A	35to 30
10 B	40to 35

Arizona

Nevada

New Mexico

CHAPTER 1

The Southwest Region

Welcome to growing a garden in one of the most fascinating and diverse places on earth. First there is the geographic region itself, with strongly upthrusting mountains, windswept plateaus, and canyons that reach down into the dawn of earth’s prehistory. We have elevations close to sea level in Yuma, Arizona, and some of the tallest peaks in the lower forty-eight states, such as the snow-capped San Francisco peaks outside Flagstaff, Arizona, and the Sangre de Cristo Range in New Mexico. Mountains and mesas may be of igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary rock, providing unique parent material for the soils of our region. (Mor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I Growing Edibles in the Southwest
• Part II Fruit & Vegetable Profiles
• Resources
• Glossary
• Index
• Photo Credits
• Meet Jacqueline A. Soule
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Copyright