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"Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can be either flowers or weeds"  - unknown

GARDENS & FRUIT TREES

Fruit & Nut Trees

 

 VEGETABLE GARDENS

We use only organic methods for growing our fruit and nut trees as well as the vegetable gardens, all planted from organic sources including many heirloom seeds. We live in a  remote area so there is little chance of cross pollination from other gardens or commercial GMO garden sources. We collect our seeds at the end of each growing cycle for next years planting and have a variety of  flower, herbs and vegetables. There are several food dehydrators and a large solar food dehydrator where we can dry our excess foods for later use.   

 

Our soil is a gardeners dream.  Almost perfect loam with a sometimes need of sulphur because of the high caliche/alkaline properties.  Because of years of erosion of the local mountain canyons there is approximately 30' of topsoil on our lower acreage.  We are fortunate to have neighbors with lots of composted cattle and horse manure.  In exchange for cleaning their stables we acquire free manure and use this in our gardens and our trees. We have also integrated a product called EM (effective microorganism) This is a Japanese beneficial liquid spray that breaks down compost and in small doses enhances plant growth by encouraging beneficial organisms to our soil. This product can be purchased through Arbico an ecological horticulture supplier on the outskirts of Tucson. 

 

One of the best advantages of living at an elevation of 2750' and having protection from the mountains surrounding our valley is the year round planting cycles.  (September/October and March/April/May.)  Other advantages are abundance of water and sunny days. The challenges are predicting the changing climate conditions that have been so prevalent in the southwest for the last 10 years.  The seriousness of the Sonoran drought is a huge challenge!  The light intensity of summer months is also a challenge even when spring gardens can be completed planting by end of March.

The opportunities to co-create a learning and sustainable experience is an inspiring process.  We feel to live as closely to our food source as possible is a goal we are striving for.

We do not use any chemicals, pesticides, insecticides or other non-organic products.  This insures a healthy microbial environment.  We encourage visitors to learn about the source of chemical products and the reasons why we choose harmonious organic products to work with nature and ourselves.

 

FRUIT AND NUT TREES

Wind Spirit has over 90 varieties of organic fruit and nut trees, We have about a 1000 organic fruit and nut trees in total.  This amount of trees and plant life within a small area creates one of the highest amounts of plant biomass in any location in Arizona. These trees are not planted in traditional orchard rows but planted in a way that it feels more like a forest than an orchard and all the varieties are planted interspersed with each other and the native trees scattered over our lower land area.  In the spring we get peaches, loquats, carob, mulberries, and still more citrus. In the summer we have many stone fruits such as peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, apples, cherries, and others such as guavas, almonds, mulberries, grapes, figs, and more. In the fall we have more figs, peaches, pears, pomegranates, and walnuts. We have different types of many of the fruit, which are ready for harvest at different times. This creates a constant year round harvest from the land!

 

Fruit & Nut Trees

 

Fruit & Nut Trees		Native and others
Almond Apple Crab Apple Golden Del Apple Green Apple Yellow Apple Rose Apricot Barlet Pears Black Walnut Carob Cherries Bing Date Palm English Walnut Figs White Medulla Figs Black mission Figs Yellow Grapefruit Pink Grapefruit Ruby Reds Grapefruit White Grapes Concord Grapes Red seedless Guava Pineapple Guava Strawberry Jujube Kumquat Lemon Ponderosa Lemon common Lemon meyer Lemon Orange Lime Limequat Loquat Nectarine Orange Blood Orange Navel Orange pink Navel Orange Valencia Orange Wrinkled Olives Peach Early spring yellow Peach White elephant Peach Orange Peach Indian Red Pears Apple Pears Asian Pecan Persimmon Oriental Persimmon Kaki Pink Mulberry Plum Italian Plum Japanese Plum Santa Rosa Plum yellow Plumcot Pomegranate Red Pomegranate Granada Purple Mulberry Quince Apple Tangelos Tangerines White Zapote		Aloe multiple types Bamboo 3 types Blue Spruce Cedar Italian Cyprus Fan Palms Juniper Magnolia Pines (Multiple types) Pink Roses Red Roses Violet Rose Saguaro Cactus Tobacco (wild) Bottle brush Texas Mt Laurel Blue Paloverde Foothill Paloverde Chaparral Mesquite Cat Claw Jojoba Acacia Indian Hathorne Hackberry Wolfberry Ocotillio Prickly pear Cholla jumping Cholla Pencil Cholla Staghorn Hedgehog cactus Barrel Cactus Night blooming cactus Willow trees Mormon tea Soap tree yucca Agave- century plants 3+ types Butterfly Bushes San Pedro cactus

We will be continually adding to this page, sharing our experience with desert gardening.

 

Photos top to bottom

Solar Dehydrator

That is one large grapefruit

Greenhouse

inside greenhouse

 

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