Desert homesteading

There are many ways to be self sufficient, and as time continues, you will see our unique ways of trying to be so.  We live in the very bio-diverse Sonoran Desert on the west facing bajada of the Tortolita Mountains.  What does this mean?  It means that traditional western farming, even small family farming, would not be very successful.  While we have five acres, about a third is occupied by a wash.  That, plus my love for nature and wildlife, limits the room we can use to grow food.  Furthermore, I am the main yardwork/gardener person and I am not the best with machinery, though I can do basic mechanics and use many machines.  I find I prefer handiwork to get things accomplish.  Thankfully, my fiancé John is better with maintenance and operations of the necessary machines we use.  So how can we grow enough to feed two people regularly?  As I just said, we live in the very bio-diverse Sonoran Desert.  That means ALMOST EVERYTHING IS EDIBLE.  So while we plan to grow some common food crops in garden beds (corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, etc.), I also am familiarizing myself with the many native food crops that grow here naturally.  Some of these foods are: cholla buds, mesquite beans, palo verde beans, prickly pear pads and fruit, saguaro fruit, and several native leafy greens.  Add some traditional perennial crops harvested by the natives before this area was colonized by Europeans, like agave and yucca, and you can add some unique regional flavors to the daily cuisine.  Of course, this doesn’t even include animals.  While we are seriously thinking about adding some chickens, anything bigger is a little more questionable.  But again, nature provides.  We may not have much in the way of large game most hunters are familiar with, but we have numerous quail, cottontail and jack rabbits, javalina,  small varmints, and occasionally deer.  The goal is to live harmoniously within our environment while being as self reliant as possible.  We still have a lot to learn, but I will share this journey with you.

Observations: Spring 2011

This spring has been a good one.  Why do I say this?  It is not because of the spring wildflower show, which hardly happened this year.  It is because the weeds have stayed down and the temperatures keep bouncing back to cooler degrees after short bursts of unseasonable warmth.  Last spring was a great wildflower show, but wildflowers also mean weeds.  The fall and early winter rains that cause good spring wildflower shows did not happen.  So instead, this is the perfect spring to get a lot of yard work done.  Things we have accomplished so far are severe pruning (1/4 to 1/3) off of several mesquite trees, removing cholla, creosote, and bursage out of proposed gathering areas, and the building of two out of nine vegetable garden beds.  The lack of herbaceous weeds and the somewhat normal temps have been a big plus during all of this heavy yard work.

Much of this work has been done in the past; however, it has been a few years since some of the areas have been cleared and they had almost fully grown over with plants.  Since I plan to marry on our property and I now have larger gatherings thanks to John’s large family and many friends, it was time to clean out.  The tree pruning should be done every few years to help shape the trees and remove the weighty new growth.  Now we have gathering areas, camping areas, and shade trees to rest under. 

In conjunction with the clearing, I have put in many hours designing and implementing a kitchen garden south of the house.  I plan to use this not only to grow much of our food, but also to act as a test garden.  Below are some of the pictures and renderings to explain my plans.

Early stages of veggie bed build using reclaimed free brick and homemade compost.

Good luck with your endeavors!   I'll keep you posted with how this all goes.