Have you heard of Companion Planting? If you Google it, you will come up with so many hits on so many various blogs, all over the US and beyond. There are DIY sites and YouTube videos to help you set out your garden with companion plantings. It’s all very good information and, for most things, works well. But we have come up with one that no one has on any charts.
So, if you’re not familiar with Companion Planting, it is basically pairing up plants that are mutually beneficial, or supportive, for each other. Let’s say you have Broccoli or Kale and you notice that every year they are inundated with aphids, next year you might want to try planting them along side Chives, Cilantro, and/or Nasturtiums – all repel aphids. If you’d like to explore this further, you can find some handy dandy charts here.
Now, this is the type of companion planting I’m talking about! You have to look closely (seems that I say that a great deal while talking about our photos), but if you do – you will see two different trees growing together. The brighter colored, large leafed tree is a lime tree. It is growing under the protection of a Chinese Elm tree. The Chinese Elm was a volunteer from Ramona, but – after the first freeze that almost killed the lime tree, I decided to let the Elm grow up to shelter the lime.
You may scoff, but when we had our couple of nights of hard freeze, I did not cover the lime tree, and this is the extent of the frost damage. The elm tree will eventually loose its leaves and then I will end up wrapping the lime tree for the winter. But for the quick frost, the elm did its job quite well. I’m hoping that get along long enough that we’ll eventually get actual limes! Time only will tell.
I’ll have to study the companion planting charts a little more closely so that this season I plant to control the bugs quite a bit better. I’m still getting used to the seasons here, and so far my vegetable growing has been for the birds. Figuratively and literally. You could also throw in the squirrels and the grasshoppers for good measure. Just saying. As I figure things out, you can be sure that I will share them here with you! Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!
The last few days we’ve been experiencing some of the wet, clear, cool stuff that falls down from the sky, i.e.: rain. We may have had more rain over the last few weeks than we had all Monsoon season. Please understand, I am not complaining. We will take the rain whenever we can get it. It saves on us watering, helps us to recharge the aquifer, and allows us to see how our rain catchments are working. It also helps to keep things a bit more green – even during the winter – and therefore, less of a fire hazard; however, it does make for more mowing/weed whacking work. 
“What are you doing this weekend?” Everyone seemed to ask me that today; the admin at work, the chiropractor, the mailman, the teller at the bank today. Quite frankly, I wasn’t really too sure. Mom and dad sent a vacuum (that works) home with me; I could do housework, there are still seeds that I want to plant, we’re supposed to be getting berry bushes that need to get into ground, we need to finish painting the chicken coop before the monsoon season starts, we also need to work on the circle garden. I wish I had started this blog yesterday so that I could say, “We’re making Stonehenge.” Now, after researching a bit for this blog, and having a discussion with Sue, I think that’s where the focus is going to lie- our own little Stonehenge, otherwise known as the circle garden. 
When we first were looking at this property, even though we visited it a few times, I don’t think we really realized how drastic the weather was going to be. The temperatures do fluctuate some, but in general, it’s been pretty mild. What has really surprised us is the wind! (I think I’ve said that a couple of times in this blog.) We seem to be in a wind vortex here, and it can be rather severe. You see to the left what was left of our first Chicken Tractor that Sue made over the summer. This is what we used to house the littles when they were first big enough to be outside without a heat lamp. It’s not a light weight object… it took two of us to move it… but here you see where it landed 50 yards from where it was, INSIDE the chicken run. So, it was lifted off the ground, glanced across the top of my car (that could have been much worse), then lost some altitude and stopped this side of our fence. Whew! Our other little shade structure took flight during that same wind storm which happened before Christmas. So, wind is something we contend with each day.
Another weather issue that we’re working with are the torrential rains. This photo is from New Year’s Day. That is Sue, out in a downpour, directing rain runoff to the “pond” that we’re keeping for water catchment. The main thing we want to do with all the rain that comes our way, is to keep it on the property as long as possible. If we’re not capturing it in the cistern, or in the rain tank, we’re trying to keep it in 
instead of running down the street into the gutters. Sue placed an 1800 gallon rainwater tank by the house, that is set up to capture half of the roof runoff and the patio cover runoff. We’ve had two good downpours since she did that and it is already full! We’re already talking about adding something to the other side of the house and carport that will capture that water to be used as irrigation during the dry periods. The runoff that Sue is working with above, is actually the overflow from the rainwater tank…I tried to capture that in the photo to the right. You can see the rain gutter going into the tank, and, in the middle of the photo you see the water just pouring out of the overflow valve. It was amazing how quickly it filled up!
The other issue we’re learning to work with, and watch out for, is SNOW! Well, and freezing night temperatures. Sometimes the temperature fluctuation from day to night is 30° or more. Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning, we had incredibly frigid temperatures from a weather system that dusted us with snow. Didn’t seem to bother the Biggies much, but the Littles would not come out of the coop. However, by mid day we were back up into the high 50’s, all the snow had melted from our property and things just continued to warm up throughout the week. We’ve taken to watching the weather quite closely so that we know when to cover the citrus trees, and the few winter veggies that I planted. So far they’ve all come through OK. We even have a few limes on the tree still, and some very small green lemons. We’ve continued to harvest the Kale, and are watching our Cabbage and Broccoli grow bigger and bigger (see today’s Facebook Post for photos); the Spinach took a breather, but held on through the coldest months and now I’m waiting for a growth spurt! One of the real champions this winter was the Coriander (Cilantro) plant; I’ve cut it several times and it just continues to put out new growth. The Basil also overwintered, but I’m not sure it’s going to be much by spring… we’ll see.
The There are many different ways we’re trying to plant and grow our food over the long term. We’re on some densely packed soils and we have long dry periods, without much precipitation, so one thing we’re trying out is Hügelkulture. Hügelkulture is a type of raised bed gardening that replicates the natural process of decomposition that occurs on forest floors. In general, you mound or pile wood, leaves, weeds, garden debris- cover with compost or soil and plant on top. Over the long term, the gradual decay of the wood and other materials provides a consistent source of nutrients. Soul aeration increases as the debris breaks down, continually tilling itself over time. Also, the logs and beaches act like a sponge; rainwater is stored and then released during the dry times.
Why Arizona? Well, to put it succinctly, affordability. This is a state and an area that we had usable land in an affordable price range. Sue was able to sell her house in California and purchase a home on 9 acres, with wells, and out buildings; fenced and cross fenced, in a beautiful area (see some of our photos in the gallery) and have funds left over to begin this enterprise. NO- it’s not in the desert! We’re located in a small “town” called Hereford, our house is around 4800 feet above sea level, nestled in the foothills of the Huachuca Mountain Range, with Oak , Mesquite, Manzanita, Sycamores, and many other beautiful native flora. We have deer, bears, javalina, some type of wild cats and many really cool bugs! This area is considered a birders paradise. Come visit us and see for yourselves.