Christel Duba PHX RE Network

03/27/2025

What are you reading for fun this Spring?

02/08/2025

Dragonfly Trail Cave Creek,AZ

02/07/2025

If you ever want to visit Arizona and find great trails check out this reel!

05/08/2024

Welcome to the Garden!

This Krimini tomato plant was planted in spring of 2023. It survived the early attack from a roof rat that ate its way through the bird netting, and then heavy plastic netting, and final capture of the roof rat.

We installed the metal mesh and attached it to makeshift panels, to easily access the plants in the raised bed. The plant, even though it was nipped to about 4 inches, grew through the top of our raised bed planter, and lasted long into the fall and early winter.

Then came our freezing rain and actual snow. We covered and secured the top of the planter with fitted bedsheets. Then surrounded the sides with thin plastic, doubled around each panel so we could still access the plant. It had many fruit that were still green by winter. After five days of below freezing temperatures, we made the difficult decision to harvest all of the green fruit and bring them indoors to let them ripen.

Much to our surprise, the fruit did ripen slowly and was absolutely delicious and was the biggest harvest of the year! These brown tomatoes are tasty, meaty and juicy. Perfect to add to a pizza or salad, very flavorful!

In early spring, we decided it was warm enough to uncover the top and sides of the planter, as temperatures were dropping only into the 50s at night and easily rising into the 70s in the day, and the plant needed sunlight to rejuvenate.

We trimmed back all the dead leaves and brown limbs off the plant and surprisingly there was early growth visible on this easily 3 foot high 2 foot wide, skeleton of a tomato plant!

We continued to nurture and fertilize the plant, watering it carefully. We kept close watch to support the new growth, without harming the core growth. This is what it looked like in early April 2024!

If you look closely, you can see that there are a handful of fruits and a larger than expected number of clusters of flowers, near the top and midsection of the plant. It is easily 4 feet tall 3 feet wide and extending near fully to the boundaries of the raised planter.

We have never had a tomato plant that had survived the winter. We have had pepper plants in the same planter that had survived without the extra care from the previous year. And of course, this spring, it also did amazingly well and I have harvested at least a dozen Italian red peppers or more!

I look at this adventure of gardening as a metaphor for what we, as a collective consciousness, have all been through this past year, working together, using each other’s skills and abilities to nurture, protect and thrive!

Life throws us all challenges, and as long as our expectations don’t get in the way of our creative process, we find new ways and inventive ways, to get through the difficult seasons. We create new groundwork for the future, by always learning from the challenges of the past, and the environment that we currently live in.

We created another new garden this spring, that should stand up to the current challenges, we uniquely experience, with regard to wildlife in our area, and the elements that we are familiar with. Most people think that it would be a waste of time to garden in the desert, trying to grow fruits and vegetables, but it is also highly rewarding to overcome the challenges that we face, within and without. The rewards it brings us in gained self-confidence that we can thrive, by overcoming the mental and physical challenges that we’re re presented.

I could not have done any of this project by myself, and that is why I am always referring to we. There are always people that we need in our lives to help us along the way, and therefore I cannot take the full credit for overcoming all the obstacles involved . It is always we coming together to overcome challenges that help us grow together. 🌱🪴🌿🍅🌶️

03/21/2024

The Big Cat … behind our neighborhood !! 🐈

The Superstition Mountain Cougar attacking prey is returning to Apache Junction Arizona! This remarkable natural shadow appears on the face of the mountain just minutes before sunset only twice a year. The very best appearances are during the third weeks of March and September near the equinox events (The 21st). This is when the sun perfectly aligns with the rocks to create this amazing display that can be seen across the city for a few minutes. The actual sighting depends upon the weather and photo location, but along Superstition Blvd at sundown is usually a good place.

02/09/2024