What type of vegetation should I select for a Garden?

What type of vegetation should I select for a Garden? There is not a Vegetable option in the Vegetation type selection screen.

I would probably start by saying Annual – then depending on what you are growing you’ll probably want to change the Crop Co-effiecient from the .8 (80%) for Annuals up to 100%, and you may want to make the root depth a lot deeper. Most vegetables run 6-24 inches, depending on the crop.

Are you using drip for them? If so, you might want to set the efficiency to 100%

Using Misters. Based upon your info I have changed the root depth to 20 inches and crop coefficient to 100%

I’d start with that and then keep an eye on it and see how things go. @azdavidr has been working with this too. So far, I’ve found the Rachio doing a great job with my lawn with minimal amount of research and work, but when it comes to annuals, perennials, vegetables, and mixed landscaping areas, I’ve had to do a lot more work just watching things and seeing what works. Not at all Rachio’s fault or shortcomings that I see. Just that it is a lot harder to dial in than grass and so many more variables.

Agreed on @Linn 's points. Be careful of that root depth though. With 20" look at your run time and make sure it’s within your expectations. Otherwise you could end up with a whole bunch of runoff. I have a raised garden and use closer to the 6" that @Linn recommended. If you have a much deeper planting area and the associated deep-rooted crop then it will make more sense for you.

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I would select annuals since vegetables have a high water requirement. What do others think?

Agreed. That’s what I do, and @linn also mentioned it. My next step is to take the default of ‘annual’ and start playing with the crop coefficient based on what’s in the garden. I’m not sure how much it will matter for me at the moment though since I’m mostly watering daily anyway, and the system won’t water any more frequently than that. It’ll probably make more of a difference when it cools down for me and I start to skip a couple days a week.

Most of the root mass for vegetables lies within the top 6 inches of soil. Since most fertilizers and compost are “top-dressed”, those top 6 inches of soil contain most of the nutrients needed for healthy growth. I have successfully grown medium to deep rooting vegetables here in the blazing hot and dry Phoenix area such as snap beans, cucumber, kale, peppers and beets. My raised beds are only 8 - 11 inches deep.

You absolutely want to deep water to encourage root development, but root depth of 20 inches may, as @azdavidr said, cause runoff.

I was trying to play with my veggie crop coefficients in previous threads but most of the coefficients I found for the plants in my garden were over 1 which is currently not supported by the software. I’ll be interested to see what you end up setting for your coefficients if you get it worked out.

@sunny I’m sure I could use your help! My daughter wanted a garden a few years ago so we threw some potting soil into a raised garden a couple of years ago and hand watered. Now I’m up to automatic irrigation and a shade structure, but that’s about it. Is there something you recommend that I do to the soil throughout the summer ? When do you water and how often ? I haven’t added any kind of fertilizer, etc. recently.

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I’m happy to share any tidbits I’ve learned along the way. If your daughter is young, you will want to plant veggies that are easy to grow so she will have a successful experience.

The Phoenix area has two veggie seasons, cool and hot, so make sure you plant appropriately, i.e. things like snap peas will only fry in our summer heat and tomatoes will not flower or set fruit.

I garden organically and amend the soil in my raised beds each time I plant (twice a year), using a combination of compost, and sterilized manure. I don’t know if it is appropriate to mention brand names, but most can be obtained in the local big box garden department.

One brand I will mention is Dr. Earth Home Grown Organic Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer, which I highly recommend.

At this point in our blast furnace season we call summer, it’s too late to plant and now is the time to amend the soil in preparation for planting in August and September.

And BTW, happy first day of summer–the temps are going to reach 100-and-WHAT today!!!

Like you, I set up shade cloth on the west side of the garden to help mitigate the effects of the afternoon sun.

As far as watering, when the temps hit around 100 - 104, I enable a second watering time for the veggies at 4:00 pm. In the summer, I use a fixed schedule to water the veggie beds daily at 5:00 am.

Since plant transpiration rates increase with the increased temps, when the heat-loving Armenian cucumbers and okra wilt in the afternoon, I know it’s definitely time to enable that afternoon watering.

Some time back, @emil asked if I could share some veggie gardening tips, and I intended to, but life happens and for quite awhile I have only occasionaly lurked here. I’m having to get caught up and as we will be revamping our Sonoran garden, I’ll have more time to try new configurations. I may call upon you to help me then.

If you want more specifics, PM me and we can chat.

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@sunny Thanks for the great info. !! I will definitely PM you. I’m glad to finally have someone local to chat with about this. Our climate definitely has some ‘special’ needs, so your experience and insight will be very helpful!

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