My new urban garden!

For a while now, I've wanted to spruce up my apartments backyard. When I first moved here, there were two cute pink young Bougainvillea plants growing back there. But aside from these there was nothing but a barren landscape of rocks and sand where according to rumors, there once was a pool which had been filled in. During the hottest summer months our backyard feels much akin to Death Valley, with heat radiating off of the unforgiving martian landscape. I was in doubt much of anything could possibly be grown out there, let alone in Arizona period. After a while a few weeds sprouted up, and once I even affectionately reffered to them as "the lawn."

I was even more disheartened when one of the Bougainvilleas died from roving poison from some nearby weeds and then the other died from (can you believe it?) a frost a few weeks back. Had I known how cold it would have been, I would have covered it. But alas, I had forgotten all about it and later found the poor thing dead. It made me pretty sad, because I had been watching it's growth progress through the year and a half that I have been living here.

I talked to a coworker one day who told me that he is able to plant all kinds of things here, and that it's very feasible. So now I've decided to start growing a few things. Not a lot, but probably a few of the hardiest vegetables. So after doing a little bit of research, I bought three 5 gallon buckets, some seeds and dirt. I've decided to start with a zucchini, yellow summer squash and tomato plant. I'm starting them out kind of early I think, but it's been in the 70's for a while now, and I think that it will be warm at night when my plants get to be larger. I planted two tomato seeds because they were so small, I wasnt sure if they would both even survive! It's hard to believe that seeds can even become such large plants.

I also had 3 pots I bought on sale at Joann Fabrics and so I also bought some flowers which were surprisingly cheap. I think I may have bought too many though, because they seem a little crowded in their pots. Hopefully it wont negatively affect their health.

Such pretty flowers, I love these ones!

Even our residential neighborhood cat Sasha loves to smell the flowers!

And now here are my vegetables:

There they are in their little pots. I planted them on the 15th and they have sprouted. I'll post pictures of them later as I keep up on their progress.