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What's Available When
What's available when is getting a bit
confusing now that Jesse has been keeping the garden opened year-round. This year (2010) we have turnips in Feb.
and carrots in March, and lettuce and spinach all winter long. But, once again I will try to generalize a "What's
Available When". Just don't get too serious about it, okay?
Desert Spring (Feb.-April-ish):
arugula, asparagus, beet greens, beets, bok choi, chard, carrots, green onions, kale, radishes,
spinach, turnip greens and turnips.
not everything all at once of course, but sometimes
quite a bit of it
 Warmer months (May, June- okay, June is hot): squash, onions, garlic, grapes, peaches, corn
By the beginning of June asparagus is
long gone. Generally spinach and lettuce are finished as well, and we don't usually expect much in the way of
turnips or beets. This year, 2011, Jesse shaded the beets and they are still going strong on the first day of summer.
Sometimes the carrots hang on for a while. The chard and kale are slowing down if not finished, though again in 2011 Jesse
has shaded the chard and it also looks beautiful in this last full week of June. And sometimes we just need to turn
things in to prepare for the next season.
But also by this time the squash starts to fill in, and this is
the month we harvest garlic and onions, which cure for a week or 2 before being put up for sale.
By the end of June we've definitely run the course on carrots, kale, green onions and beets (I'm thinking it
will still be so anyway in 2011), and almost so on chard. But we have squash, 4 varieties of garlic, sweet onions with
occassional gaps, and late in the month of June corn generally appears and reappears for a couple weeks. Also late in
June or early July is when we see peaches and grapes. Sometimes we get a sneak preview of tomatoes as well.
 Absolutely Summer (July,
August, and yes, September):
corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, melons
Salsa months! Now we're seeing tomatoes at last. Earlier the lower ones were quail food, but now they can
no longer reach the red beauties. We grow several varieties of peaches, so they should still be available off and on,
and make wonderful salsa too. We might still have corn at the beginning of the month depending on the year, and okra
should be a regular. Cucumbers may already have appeared, and the peppers and eggplant wait until it is good and warm
at night, hot peppers appearing before the sweet ones. When we think we can wait no longer the melons are also ready,
but never for the 4th of July it seems. (again, 2011 may be different here as we picked a watermelon yesterday on the
Summer Solstice) Sometimes not even until August. It's possible to still have sweet onions into
September, and garlic is almost forever, along with zucchini.
 We Hope It's Fall (Oct., Nov.):
beets, bok choi, carrots, chard, green onions, kale, lettuce, spinach, and if the cole crops were
started in August sucessfully: broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage in Nov.
October is another
transition month where temperatures could be hot or cold, so the summer crops are usually still around but it's been known
to frost in a nasty way, changing all that. So we start October with that hot weather stuff, but can end it with greens.
November was always our closing month when the tomatoes would depart until the following year, and Wayne
and I would depart until asparagus in March. But Jesse is more industrious than we.. or is it that this is his
only employment?! He is continually improving his frost protection with row covers and frost cloth. So now we
winter through with greens and roots and cole crops.
Winter! (Dec.,
Jan., early Feb.)
Whatever remains of all of the above, depending on the success of row covers protecting
them from frosts, plus citrus beginning with AZ Sweet oranges, phasing into Marsh grapefruit, and finally tangeloes.
Some things phase out with the heat, some are slower to start. Sometimes
we have a killing frost followed by 90 degrees.
Heaven help us, it all depends on the weather!
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