High Desert Gardening (Elevation: 4,200’)
Don’t believe everything you hear about things that will NOT grow in the high desert. We have grown a variety of things that we were told could not grow. If we had listened to the people who told us what we could not grow, we would not even have a garden because we were told that hardly anything grows in this area (Sprague River, OR). At the end of this article is a list of fruits and vegetables that we have grown successfully, along with planting tips.
Planning what you want to grow is the first step in a successful garden. After you have chosen your garden mix, it is time to decide how big you want the garden to be. Next, get a rototiller and work the ground really good. After that, you will need to put fertilizer on it. We use horse manure, sometimes goat, and cow manure. Cow and goat manure work the best because you won’t end up with a bunch of weeds in your garden. I won’t go into why because then this would really be lengthy. After you have worked the ground really good and put the manure on it, you get to work it again. Till the ground really good with the manure on it so you have a good mix. In preparation for the following year, you can put more manure on the garden in the fall and let it rest all winter.
Next, you will need to stake out the rows. Drive a stake at the ends of each row. You want your rows to be straight, so use a string line. We usually put our stakes about 3’ apart. This allows room to maneuver between the rows to do the weeding. This distance also gives the plants room to grow. You will need to read on each package about the depth, seed spacing, and when to plant. I don’t plant until the last week of May, to keep everything from freezing.
We have found that planting in furrows, or trenches, works the best. The trenches are at least 6” deep. We plant the seeds in them and then for the first 3 to 5 days, we lightly spray them with the garden hose so as not to disturb the seeds. After that time we just hold the hose at the start of the trench with a light flow of water running until the whole trench is damp. As the plants grow, you can increase the flow of water. We water in the evening so the water has the whole night to soak into the ground and into the roots of the plants.
Planting in trenches cuts down on the weeds that grow between the rows because you are just watering where you need to. You are also saving on water because you are not watering areas that do not need it. We also have small birds that come to drink and bathe in the trenches when I am watering so this helps them out, and they do not bother the plants.
Before we started planting in trenches, we had weeds growing everywhere, and the plants did not grow as well. Also, if we tried to harvest anything in the daytime we would have a lot of bees to contend with. Now we do not have this problem.
Well I hope this has helped at least one person, and I hope you enjoy your garden as much as we enjoy ours. Here is the list of fruits and veggies that I promised you:
Successful planting without a greenhouse:
Plant in trenches
Cabbage
Carrots
Radishes
Lettuce
Spinach
Onions
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Dill Weed
Sweet Basil (great for indigestion problems)
Beets
Swiss Chard
Plant in hills
Potatoes
Squash (different kinds of squash)
Crooke Necks
Cucumbers
Plant in small round trenches
Strawberries
Raspberries
© 2008, Penny Jarvis
April 11, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Penny,
I use to do what is called companion gardening but have long since lost my notes on planting in this manner. Do you have anything on that?
Marti
August 4, 2008 at 8:38 am
We are seriously considering relocating to Lassen County in California and i have been gathering information on crops to grow for ‘high desert gardening.’ Since I love tomatoes my research seems to be pointing in the direction of the darker skinned varieties of tomato some called ‘black tomatoes’ or ‘russian tomatoes’ for altitude gardeners and I am wondering if you have tried any of these newer varieties as shown at http://www.gourmetseed.com/green_tomato_seed.0.html biologically it makes sense that these tomatoes would have darker skins than their lower altitude and more mediterranean cousins would be so that they might gather more sun energy and demonstrated a shorter period of time from seed to ripened fruit, in this case 70 to 76 days! Also, having read of other’s travels to the Caucasus/Siberia/Russia they do grow their own local varieties of tomatoes which came as news to me when I first read of it!
August 31, 2008 at 11:22 pm
HA! Now I know what to do with all my horse manure! Thanks for sharing!
June 10, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I want to grow orange trees up here. (Yucca Valley-high desert 3500ft.) I see they grow well in Palm Springs and San Bernardino. What do I have to do? The soil is caliche clay and water runs right thru it. It will get cold here in winter (low 30’s-mid 20’s) and we will get snow 1-2 times/yr.
Any advise?
August 7, 2009 at 6:19 am
To ppjg re: companion planting. An excellent book on this subject was written by Anna Carr called “Good neighbors: Companion palnting for gardeners”, published by Rodale press. This is the most extensive book I have seen on the subject. Get a used hardback copy from Amazon for $1.14 as of yesterday.
September 1, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Hello….I am so excited to see that there are other high desert dwellers. I live in the high deserts of california at elevation of 5,500. I started a vegetable garden and I currently have tomatoes, corn, zuccini, beans, yellow squash. I am using large containers..the kind you would use to place at a party with tons of ice and soda in. I am watering from bottom up. There is a space below with lots of broken up used plastic a screen covering it and then dirt on top of it. I started my seedlings indoors in my southern window during the spring…April & May. Planted them outdoors when the weather would reach up to 80 during the day and not drop below 50 at night. It appears to be successful so far. I’m also going to raise “red” worms to help enrich the soil and eat my garbage. You are welcome to email me. I am still learning to live in this area. I have lived in this place almost 4 years.
Take care,
November 12, 2009 at 10:09 am
I’m going to move to Hesperia this month and I really love my roses and fruit trees here in Los Angeles do you think I can have the same up there??
November 12, 2009 at 11:16 am
You are in the high desert, at a slightly less elevation than I am, which means a longer, warmer growing season.
Here are the weather statistics:
http://www.wunderground.com/NORMS/DisplayNORMS.asp?AirportCode=KSBD&SafeCityName=Hesperia&StateCode=CA&Units=none&IATA=DAG
From this, it looks like the average is NO SNOW! And, the lows look to be in the high 30’s. Excellent! I would love to have those conditions here.
Here is a site I ran across for growing apples in SoCal:
http://www.kuffelcreek.com/apples.htm
Lots of good info.
Here is another link that goes into all sorts of tips for growing fruits and veggies in that area:
http://local.garden.org/Edibles_Hesperia_CA-t2473_Hesperia+CA.html
I don’t know why you couldn’t grow roses there, we can here, but the deer get them rather quickly.
Since it is high desert, I would condition the soil, beware of frost, and protect any young plants from freezing.