I love visiting other people’s gardens, particularly if they have fruit and vegetables growing in them. So, I was thrilled to be able to go on a tour of local ‘edible’ gardens earlier this month.

This is the second year of the Arcadia Edible Garden Tour, which is made up of a collection of residential gardens in the ‘Arcadia’ area in east Phoenix.  I used to live in this area and it is one of my favorite regions of the Phoenix metro area.

Because my mother loves gardening almost as much as I do, I decided to buy her a ticket too and take her with me as a Mother’s Day gift.

Our first stop was to see Jill’s Sweet Life Garden.  I made sure to visit there first because I had been following her blog and couldn’t wait to see her gardens in person.

As we entered the garden, We headed straight for the raised vegetable beds.

My mother and I love to grow leaf lettuce, so we had to see what varieties were being grown.

One of the reasons that I was excited to go on this garden tour, was to get ideas to use in my own garden.

Like, using regular wire mesh over the garden.  This would be great to use as a support for shade cloth in summer or frost cloth in the winter.  It is much more attractive then PVC supports.

The trellis is made of rebar and wire mesh and provides an attractive support for vining vegetables.

As many of you know, I love to grow nasturtiums alongside my vegetables.  They aren’t only pretty, they help to keep bad bugs away from my veggies.

This bed had a variety of nasturtium that I was anxious to try ‘Cherry Rose Jewel’ (I found seeds at Botanical Interests).  I will definitely be planting these next year.

As I was busy admiring the raised beds, my attention was drawn upward by a massive trumpet vine that was growing up a Phoenix date palm.

Talk about an unexpected support for a vine – I loved it.

I have been growing a special variety of corn in a half wine barrel.  

Sweet Life Garden had cucumbers growing in a barrel with a beautiful trellis.

Baker’s Nursery had these wine barrel trellises available, but I’m not sure if they still do.  You could certainly make your own.

In addition to cucumbers, sunflowers were also growing in a barrel.  I may have to try this.

I love growing herbs in pots, but I think Jill’s look better then mine because of the half barrels.  I think I need to get more for my garden.

Tomatoes were growing like crazy with some beautiful heirloom varieties ripening.

Wouldn’t this look beautiful on a sandwich or on a salad?

I think it is important to have seating areas scattered throughout the garden, which invites you to sit and enjoy your surroundings.

Here is another example of the wire mesh being used as a trellis.

For those of you who mourn the fact that they cannot grow leafy greens for their salad in summer – let me introduce you to Malabar spinach.

Okay, it’s not exactly a spinach but tastes great in salads and tastes like spinach when cooked.

It loves hot temperatures and needs a trellis for support.  I have seeds, but will probably wait until next year to plant mine.

The seeds can be a little hard to find at your local nursery, but you can buy some through Amazon.com for under a $1 – just type in Malabar spinach in the search.

Why limit yourself to growing just vegetables?

Fruit on shrubs and trees is also fun to grow as you can see from the large peach tree, above and the espaliered apple tree, below.

I especially enjoyed seeing the peach orchard. My peaches are almost ready for picking 🙂

I have been busy picking the blackberries off of my vines and have been thinking of adding more next winter.  

After seeing the berries at Sweet Life Garden, I will definitely add more to my own garden.

Did you know that there is a thornless variety?  I have one thorny blackberry bush and the rest are thornless.  Guess which kind I like best?

It was time to wrap up our visit because there were more gardens to visit.

Did I mention that they have chickens too?

On our way out, we enjoyed seeing a variety of products offered by Sweet Life Garden and local vendors.

I had already eaten breakfast, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying a few samples.

The three-cheese black pepper bread came home with me.

We had a great time visiting Jill, at Sweet Life Garden.

But, our adventure didn’t end there.  There were more gardens to visit.  I will give you the highlights of the other gardens in my next post.

**You can find information about the Arcadia Edible Garden Tour on Jill’s blog, Sweet Life Garden.  Be sure to order early next spring, when tickets are available.

Arcadia Edible Tour: Part 2