Katie Baker from the Morning News on CBS-5. Came to my house to interview me. Here is the Article

Homepage / Phoenix News
E-Mail Alerts | RSS

11:23am | June 9, 2011

It’s Not Too Late To Plant A Valley Garden
Katie Baker
Multi-Media Meteorologist/Journalist, KPHO CBS 5 News/>

POSTED: 11:52 am MST June 7, 2011
UPDATED: 8:54 am MST June 8, 2011

PEORIA, Ariz. — Even with temperatures rising into the triple digits in June, certain vegetables can still thrive in a Valley garden.

Gardening expert, Nancy Smith, of Peoria says you can plant cucumbers right now in the Valley and in 55 days you’ll be enjoying the delicious vegetable. Other veggies that thrive in the heat are muskmelon, sweet potatoes and sunflowers.

Smith says to have a successful garden in the Valley you need one main ingredient.

“The major thing in Phoenix is to make sure you have a really good watering system. When I didn’t have a drip system, a watering system, I forgot to water and things didn’t do so well. (Now) we have a drip system. I water every three days for about 10 minutes in the morning and that keeps everything going,” said Smith.

Smith says it’s a huge perk to not have to buy vegetables at the grocery store.

“We rarely buy any vegetables. Our freezer’s full and so we don’t really need to buy,” Smith said. She did buy a head of lettuce the other day, but that was only because you can’t freeze lettuce very well.

Smith also loves the taste of fresh veggies. “We just had corn last night. We picked our first two ears of corn. There were so delicious, so sweet. You just can’t buy that in the store.”