My introduction and gardening interests

My first post as a blogger!  Please forgive me if I am not very polished, I hope and intend to hone my skills as time goes by.

First, since this blog is meant to be about my backyard and gardening intersts, a little background. I live on the east bench in Salt Lake City, Utah.  The climate here is pretty dry, and during the summer months it is also pretty hot.  It's early June, and we've already had our first day at 100 degrees F.  That's already challenging for plants, but to add to the challenge, we are on a  fairly steep hillside, and the soil is quite clayey.  In reality, it's more of a shale bedrock.  So water (or the lack) is a challenge, as is soil composition, and heat. What I plan to do in this blag is explore some of those challenges, and techniques and/or plants I've found to be helpful in surmounting those challenges.  And, I promise ot to leave out the failures.

The steepness of the slope provides a particular challenge for vegetable gardening.  And, with the many trees, it's also pretty shady, and that does nothing for most vegetables.  There are a few ways around that, some of which are new to me this year, so we'll explore how those work out over the summer.

First, our old and established beds. Here's a picture:

This is a bed high on our hill, carved out of the hillside by a previous owner.  The castle block wall on the left gives you an idea of the steepness. Here we have six raised beds, four that are four ft sq, two that are three feet by 18 inches.  I put some effort a few years ago into sheet composting this area, basically on top of the bedrock, and it's showing a big improvement in plant growth.  Shallots are in the foreground, and further back are strawberries, garlic, a raspberry plant, and a few other things. I use drip irrigation here and supplement with hand watering.

This is an experiment back down the hill a  little closer to the house.  I bought this garden table last fall, and we set it up this spring.

It's mulched with a product used for establishing seeds on slopes (which I am also playing around with), this was an extra piece.  This pic is from a bout a month ago, and I'll update it soon.  the plants are getting quite large now, and include basil, eggplant, two peppers, broccoli, a volunteer tomato (no idea where that came from), and a mystery plant that someone gave me.  This I already count as a success, and it's also kind of cool. Watering this by hand so far.

Finally, we have my straw bale experiment.  Theoretically, you can plant directly into these with great results.  They need a lot of fertilizer.  I am watering these by hand so far.  Have two tomatoes here, and also a  cucumber.  they are making it, but not thriving.

I also love the more decorative parts of the garden, here are a few examples:

 can't remember the name of the first flower, honeysuckle, a path in te garden, and a tropical visitor from a few weeks ago, a Western Tanager.

Thanks for stopping by, I'll be back all summer posting my garden's progress!