Veggie bed options for the Tucson climate | Home & Garden

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This container garden in the Pima County Cooperative Extension shows how various materials can be used as planters. You can take a virtual tour of this garden or come by in person.

Alex McIntyre

As with much other gardening work, growing vegetables here in the desert has its unique challenges. In large parts of the country, people like to grow their vegetables in raised beds. However, you should know that there is another option – sunken beds – that has some advantages in our climate.

First, let’s discuss why we use raised beds. Beds are basically large containers that allow us to control the type of soil and the nutrients it contains. In a desert where the soil is so different from the soil where these food crops normally grow, this can be a huge benefit. But every container has two major disadvantages that are related: limited bottom depth and susceptibility to drying out. This is where sunken beds come into play.

Both types of vegetable beds have their advantages and disadvantages. Which one you use (or maybe a combination of both) depends in part on your needs and preferences, and in part on the features of the website where you grow your food.

Keep in mind that the features described here can also help you decide how to grow other plants in containers, including non-native ornamental plants, cut flowers, roses, and the like.

Create sunken beds

Sunken beds are created by digging up an area of ​​native soil to create a large, deep basin that you then fill with the soil you plan to use to grow your vegetables. The most important thing is to get rid of all of the caliche that is your greatest enemy when planting non-native plants in native soil. You need to dig about 2 feet deep to give even your deeply rooted vegetables plenty of room to grow.

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