What Makes the Desert So Difficult to Garden In?

While there are some benefits to growing a garden in the desert, there are also a lot of difficulties. The high temperatures, lack of moisture, and poor soil come together to make this environment feel like it's constantly working against you. There are ways to combat these things, however, so read on to see some of my tips for handling these tough conditions.

Extreme Temps and High Winds

The temperatures in the desert can be extreme. Where I live in the Mojave Desert, our summers can get up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit, and because Las Vegas sits in a valley, we can have very strong winds as well. So how can we deal with the tough summers and high winds?

Make shade cloth your friend. Try to cover as much of your garden as you can with 40% (or higher) shade cloth. Just make sure you don't lay the fabric directly over the beds. You want to raise it up at least a few feet with a hoop structure or pergola.

Do most of your gardening in the early spring and early fall. I like to split my season up into 2 short seasons, rather than one long one, so that during the worst part of the summer I only have a few heat tolerant hold-outs that stay in survival mode until fall.

Grow heat tolerant varieties. There are many thousands of varieties of fruits and vegetables out there to grow, and the secret to growing them here is to choose the ones that can stand the heat. Most seed packets will tell you the best temperature range, so that can help you find what will work for you.

Stake delicate plants and/or plant them near walls or fences. To deal with the winds it's important to make sure all of your stakes and structures are really sturdy. Any delicate plants should be secured to these to keep them from snapping in the wind. This year I also plan to cover my baby meyer lemon tree with agricultural fabric because every year a strong wind blows away all of its blooms before they have a chance to take hold.

No Rain or Humidity

It hardly ever rains in Las Vegas. As I'm writing this, I'm trying to remember the last time my house saw a good steady rain, and I honestly can't think of it. It's been many months, at least. There are some benefits to living in such dry conditions, mold is not usually an issue, and certain bugs, like fleas and ticks, aren't around, but it makes gardening a lot more difficult. You absolutely have to have a decent watering system put in place if you are going to start a garden in a dry climate. If you start out thinking that you will go out and hand water everyday, you're setting yourself up for failure, especially if you're planning to keep anything alive through the summer. My best recommendation is to set up a drip system on a timer. I will devote an entire blog post to setting up this sort of thing soon, but it doesn't need to be very complicated and it can be relatively inexpensive.

The Soil is Rocky and Lifeless

It sucks to say it, but it is virtually impossible to grow most things directly in ground here without spending some time working the ground and adding nutrients. I have dug up a few areas in my backyard to add trees or to try to grow some desert adapted perennials, and what I have found is several inches of rocky dirt, followed by heavy clay and more rocks. If you really want to plant things directly in ground, make sure it is native or desert adapted and it's usually good practice to dig a hole twice as big as the plants root ball so that you can work some decent soil into the area. I will write more on this subject later. The best way to deal with hard ground, however, is to use raised beds and containers. I have 5 raised beds in my backyard, the lowest one is about 6 inches tall and the highest is about 2 feet tall. I also have a handful of 20 gallon grow bags. All of this allows me to control the soil and nutrients that my plants are getting, so I don't have to worry about tilling through rocky dirt. You can also buy raised beds that are taller, which has an added benefit if you have a hard time bending over. Most fruit and vegetable plants have shallow roots, so you want to make sure that you are giving them plenty to feed on in those top few inches of soil and that they don't need to fight through rocks and clay to get to it.

No matter where your garden is in the world, the key is in how you adapt. The desert comes with a unique set of difficulties, but the challenge is also what makes the end result more rewarding. Being able to grow food in an area that most people think can only grow cacti is exciting, and it shows the resiliency that gardeners have. If we want to grow something, we will find a way!

If you have any other tips for handling some of these issues, I would love to hear them! Please leave them in the comments so other gardeners can learn from them as well.