Another New Member in AZ
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2025 12:12 am
Hi everyone,
I was once an annoying teenager on the internet so some of you may recognize my username from various other tomato and garden sites. My parents let me tear up their backyard until I went to college but now I'm 30 and finally have a place with my own backyard. It's in a build-to-rent so I'll be entirely in containers and grow bags at home but am looking into a community garden plot.
I'm in the Phoenix Metro area and I'm expecting it to be one of the more difficult places I've gardened. I went to college up the mountain in Flagstaff at 7000 foot elevation where I did an internship on an organic farm. I also briefly worked at a nursery in Colorado as a grower where I had about 20,000 sq ft of greenhouse space I was responsible for, growing mostly landscaping perennials and hanging baskets of annuals. I grew up in Southern California which is, of course, one of the easier places to garden.
I'm an environmental scientist by degree and profession where I deal with commercial pesticide products and groundwater. My life revolves around dirt and water even more now that I'm getting the garden started.
A lot of my interests lie in collecting, breeding, and selection. I expect to make a few crosses this year but don't have any real goals or direction. I was pretty friendly with a lot of the breeders like Keith Mueller back then and learned a lot that I've never been able to put into practice.
Most of my plants are already started inside and I'm excited to have 2 seasons/one very long season. I work from home so hopefully watering 3 times a day in peak summer won't be an issue. I have one successful germination of ~15 year old tomato seed and hopefully some of my other old stuff will eventually pop up. I started some old Dwarf Project seed that was never given a fair chance so hopefully that germinates to have something to play with this year.
Thanks for listening to me ramble out my life story lmao.
I was once an annoying teenager on the internet so some of you may recognize my username from various other tomato and garden sites. My parents let me tear up their backyard until I went to college but now I'm 30 and finally have a place with my own backyard. It's in a build-to-rent so I'll be entirely in containers and grow bags at home but am looking into a community garden plot.
I'm in the Phoenix Metro area and I'm expecting it to be one of the more difficult places I've gardened. I went to college up the mountain in Flagstaff at 7000 foot elevation where I did an internship on an organic farm. I also briefly worked at a nursery in Colorado as a grower where I had about 20,000 sq ft of greenhouse space I was responsible for, growing mostly landscaping perennials and hanging baskets of annuals. I grew up in Southern California which is, of course, one of the easier places to garden.
I'm an environmental scientist by degree and profession where I deal with commercial pesticide products and groundwater. My life revolves around dirt and water even more now that I'm getting the garden started.
A lot of my interests lie in collecting, breeding, and selection. I expect to make a few crosses this year but don't have any real goals or direction. I was pretty friendly with a lot of the breeders like Keith Mueller back then and learned a lot that I've never been able to put into practice.
Most of my plants are already started inside and I'm excited to have 2 seasons/one very long season. I work from home so hopefully watering 3 times a day in peak summer won't be an issue. I have one successful germination of ~15 year old tomato seed and hopefully some of my other old stuff will eventually pop up. I started some old Dwarf Project seed that was never given a fair chance so hopefully that germinates to have something to play with this year.
Thanks for listening to me ramble out my life story lmao.
