Arizona low desert gardeners who love tomatoes can take advantage of two growing seasons. Tomatoes planted after the last spring frost (usually mid-February at lower elevations) can be ready for salads and pasta sauce within 60-90 days.
Those who missed that optimal window can plan on the monsoon, planting around the end of July through mid-August, and covering with shade cloth to protect your plants from daytime heat until gentler autumn daytime highs.
The favorite temperature of tomatoes range from 70-to-90 degrees, with nights that stay above 55. So, Rim Country climes have not quite reached those optimal temps, but weâre getting close, so now is the time to make all the best preparations.
ROSARITO
The barbed wire fencing that surrounds most of Cantamar, a beachfront development located about 15 miles south of Rosarito, is barely noticeable against the towering palm trees lining the property and the percussion of nearby ocean waves.
Residents of the luxury beach-side community say they’ve had to climb over that steel fencing just to leave their homes in recent weeks because of an escalating dispute with the property manager. They say that in pursuit of new maintenance fees, she has blocked the exit, cut-off water and gas, and refused entry to guests, maintenance workers, and even some residents.
About 40 Baja California residents, many of them U.S. citizens and California retirees, say they’ve completely lost access to their homes.
One morning in January, I found myself 30 feet (9 meters) up a tall metal pole, carrying 66 pounds (35 kilograms) of aluminum antennas and thick weatherproofed cabling. From this vantage point, I could clearly see the entire Punta Banda Estuary in northwestern Mexico. As I looked through my binoculars, I observed the estuary’s sandy bar and extensive mudflats packed with thousands of migratory shorebirds frenetically pecking the mud for food.
In winter, more than 1 million shorebirds that breed in the Arctic will visit and move throughout the coastline of northwest Mexico. It’s possible they are tracking rare superabundant seasonal resources like fish spawning events. Or maybe they are scouting for sites with better habitat to spend their nonbreeding season. The truth is, researchers don’t actually know. It has been incredibly hard to elucidate how birds use the region and what drives their movements in this vast network of coastal wetlands spanning 3,100 miles (5,000 kilomete