Summers in Las Vegas are brutal as we all know. I laugh when people tell me it is a dry heat. Try standing in it for more than a half an hour and tell me that the moisture in the air really matters. It is hot. It is dangerous to stay in and it is necessary to protect the garden from these direct sun rays. 

I cover my main vegetable bed during the intense heat months. Slowly, the weeks pass, and if all goes well, I will still have a few items ready to bring forth their goodness. The tomato plants offered fruit here and there and so did a couple of the strawberry plants. The Swiss Chard and basil were persistent and strong. I still have kale and am seeing a return of the artichoke plants in the center bed. Watermelon vines cover the entire surface of the 7' x 7' area that held corn in late spring. The fruits are set and the last count was over two dozen. 

The kale surprised me. Last year my red Russian kale had an infestation of scale so bad it stunted the growth of the plants and eventually killed them. My first planting of the variety was seriously disappointing. This year was completely opposite. Several plants thrived and still stand sturdy even will some cutworm holes and chicken pecks. 

The only expectation from a summer garden in the Vegas valley is keeping plants alive. Helping them survive the horrendous heat is ​my only wish. My goal has been met and the Fall temperatures are here. I am seeing the green peppers set and the garlic in bloom. The parsley is returning and I may be able to sow a batch of spinach to get through the cool months. Peas and cabbage can be planted as well as carrots and beets. I have not planned a Fall and Winter garden so this year I will carry this idea forth and grow some more experimental items. 

The past few seasons have been very educational. It has been an honor to be a part of the process of edible gardening. The tiny seeds evolve into sturdy plants and send forth the bounty for harvest. What a miracle of nature. What a blessing. 

The United States has most of the temperate zones in four quadrants. We have high humidity areas to mountainous regions, deserts to plains and everything in between. If you have a yearning to garden, start with the basics and see how they grow. Test them in appropriate seasons. Plant your tomatoes as soon as the last frost passes from your area. Can't garden outdoors for very long because winter only stays away for a short time? Set up a grow light and try to grow tomatoes in a container. If you can get a tomato to produce pot bound you can get other things to grow. Keep trying. I let countless plants die because of neglect. I didn't water for a couple of days and there goes that vegetable garden. I have since dedicated the necessary time to regular maintenance and observation. Once the initial work is complete, a few hours a week is all the garden needs. Once a month, clear out weeds and inspect plants.

Where do you live and what climate issues do you have to deal with? 

Strawberries are once again on the tasting menu here at The Strawberry Planet. I grow a small batch at this time, but am studying the plant's behavior so that I know how much I can harvest from it on a daily basis once this plant is mature and in season.

I am curious what It would take to gather enough berries for a batch of strawberry jam. My recipe requires five quarts of crushed berries. That is a lot of fruit. To accomplish this type of production I would need a very large strawberry patch. Now, of course, if I wanted to freeze berries as they ripen on the vine, a gallon sized bag would suffice. I'd need at least a few weeks at the rate my current plant is producing.

The basket here on the right shows the very first of the berries for season 2016. This plant is strong and healthy. It is a happy little berry machine and I dare not disturb it. Once a plant has proved its worth, please do not meddle with it! I've killed beautiful plants because I carelessly moved it from one spot to another. The best advice I can give is just scrape old soils out from around the base of a plant and replace with fresh stuff. In a container, the soil level usually drops a bit during the growing season as it is watered. Replenishing soil is a simple method here. Just fill the container back to about three inches from the tip and water well. 

The rest of my garden is referred to as Survival Recovery Farms. It is a project that inspired me to walk out of a dark period in my life and bask in not only the physical sunshine on our planet, but the sunshine of the spirit. I strongly believe in gardening for the health of the body and the soul. You will read about that in my upcoming gardening journal, The Secret to Gardening in the Desert (and everywhere else!.) I will be releasing it in October 2016 (hopefully!!) and it will be available as a Kindle book and a print on demand volume as well. Both will be featured on Amazon books when they are released.

The images above are from my personal garden this Spring, 2016. As you can see, I grow more than just the berries. I have a green thumb they tell, me, but I think it's more brown, especially when I've been planting or pulling weeds. Garden gloves only hold back so much dirt. The top left corner is a batch of greens I pulled recently and one of my artichokes. I very proud of the kale shown. What you do not see is the grocery bag full of leaves which I harvested this past Friday. The greens were delish when I cooked them up southern style! There are springs of rosemary and parsley which I added to the kale dish as well as a potato salad I made up that day to serve with my dinner. There are onion tops that I chopped like chives and they went into each dish, as well. The two small, red things on the left are my first Sweet 100's tomatoes, which are tasty but awful small. The strawberries are #13, 14, and 15 off our beloved berry plant. I'm so very excited about seeing her go hog wild with berries again! 

The next set of images are as follows:
Watermelon Seedlings
Strawberry Harvest #1 2016
Radish Seedlings
Sweet 100 Tomatoes
Spaghetti Squash
Tomato Branch Rooting
Corn Patch
​Strawberry Image Quartet 

I will post more this weekend as I have to move on to my day job, now. Have a great day all, and if you are in a mood, try gardening. There are so many more rewards with it than just the things you see and eat.

​Ta ta for now! =)

I have several previous articles on gardening that I posted on Squidoo and now on Hubpages. They are the introduction to my writing and have been somewhat successful. They have received a few visitors and I am happy they stay published. They are great test runs on the description of projects that the reader may do themselves.

​I love what I do. I just do not have the time or the skills enough to make them go viral. I am happy that they just are. They are similar to certain plants in the garden. They are living and they are around just in case someone needs them. I like it that way. I'm very busy in the creating of other things to be bothered. 

I've always had the desire to grow plants, but space is always at a premium when you really do not own a yard. I successfully grew several items in my tiny apartment world.

My cherry tomato article won me a front page on the now closed website Squidoo. I was honored to be chosen out of hundreds of submissions. This article sparked an interest in both the garden passion and the desire to share this information with others.

The first blog post is like a flower bud waiting to open. It possesses a good deal of information and growth potential under the petals. What both need are nurturing efforts and a good deal of attention to detail. The right mix of temperatures and moisture work well for a plant flower where good sentence structure and legible communication work with the written words. I shall attempt both. I need to document this year's garden and it was time to open my website on the topic. Today, I celebrate the birth of The Strawberry Planet. 

My experience covers both container and in ground gardens from Florida's humidity to the Southern Nevada desert. I love plants. I love growing edibles. I love sharing my experience with others so that they in turn get the garden fever and discover their potential with those living things we call plants. 

I will attempt to entertain as well as inform as I progress along these pages. Humor may weave itself in as I name different plants to make the journal more interesting. Already, I have chosen to call my beloved strawberry plant, Orbit, as I have already begun it's story on the opening page of this website. The site will change and evolve as more information seeds it and, like an obsessive's garden tends to do, it will branch out and become a small sanctuary for the author and those who delight in following. Already, I am violating proper composition with run on sentences, but this is for fun and my amusement, not a grade, thankfully.

I will post more later in the week. For now I must rest as I do really have a day job I have to report to. It covers the nursery bills....