Epic Yard Farm

09/11/2026

Tonight’s dinner is brought to you by a very abundant Gardyn harvest. 🌱💚

We harvested Green Bok Choy, Purple Bok Choy, Green Tatsoi, and Red Tatsoi and kept things simple, just a quick stir-fry with garlic and salt. When the greens are this fresh, they really don’t need much!

We even harvested one of our Purple Cayenne peppers to add a little homegrown heat to our Vietnamese dipping sauce, nước chấm. 🌶️

Dinner ended up being crispy air-fried seasoned chicken over broken rice, a big pile of freshly harvested Asian greens, and plenty of nước chấm spooned over everything.

I love meals like this. Nothing overly complicated, just walking over to our indoor garden, harvesting what’s ready, and turning it into dinner. 🥬🌶️🍚

And yes… apparently our Gardyn has officially become our Asian greens department. 😂

Gardyn

09/06/2026

Sometimes a garden space needs a redesign to give it a new purpose. 🌱

This area originally started as our raised-bed vegetable garden. We eventually removed the beds to make room for the garden path, then repurposed an old pergola from our patio and turned it into a grape arbor/hangout spot.

Now it’s time for another evolution!

We want to turn this into a dedicated salsa garden filled with tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. 🍅🌶️🥒 The existing pergola gives us a great framework to work with, so the plan is to modify it to support shade cloth during the hottest part of the year and protective netting to help keep the birds away from our harvest.

One thing gardening has taught us is that a space doesn’t have to stay the way you originally designed it. As the garden grows, and as we learn what works and what doesn’t, the space can grow and change right along with us.

Now comes the fun part… slowly plan and build it this fall/winter! 💪😃

09/05/2026

Apparently my brain has decided that 2 AM is the perfect time to plan the fall garden. 😆🌱

I can’t sleep because I keep dreaming about all the things I want to plant this fall! I really want to add more pollinator-friendly flowers throughout Epic Yard Farm and start back up a few small patches of vegetable garden now that our cooler growing season is getting closer.

Luckily, Botanical Interests is having their Labor Day Sale right now, with 20% off select seeds and seed-starting supplies. (Botanical Interests)

So naturally… I ordered a handful of fun new seeds to start planting this month. 😂🌸🥕🐝

Now I just need to figure out where I’m going to put everything.

Check out the sale here:
https://tidd.ly/3Veb7KR

08/31/2026

Check out this great interview by ABC15 Arizona! 🌳🌱

Adding more trees and greenery to our neighborhoods can make a real difference in helping cool the increasingly hot city we call home. Every tree, every garden, and every little patch of green helps.

Let’s grow a greener, cooler Phoenix together. 💚

Let’s BE EPIC and make it happen! 🌱

Arizona summers can be brutal, but experts say the right landscapin...

08/31/2026

There is something extra satisfying about growing something beautiful that you can also eat. 🌺🥗

Our red Hibiscus moscheutos has been putting on these absolutely massive, gorgeous blooms in our Gardyn indoor hydroponic system, and last night a few of those bright pink petals made their way into our homegrown salad.

Also known as swamp rose mallow, hardy hibiscus, or crimson-eyed rosemallow, Hibiscus moscheutos is native to wetlands across much of eastern and southern North America. The petals are edible with a mild flavor, so they don’t overpower the salad, but they add such a beautiful pop of color.

One of the things I really enjoy about growing with our Gardyn is the diversity of what we can grow indoors. It isn’t just lettuce and herbs, we can experiment with edible flowers and other fun plants, all in the comfort of our home and away from the Arizona summer heat and garden pests. 🌱

And really… how can you resist adding those hot-pink petals to your salad? 💕

If you’ve been curious about our Gardyn indoor hydroponic system, comment BLOOMS and I’ll send you our discount link and more information.

08/30/2026

Giving our new Carrie mango a little extra help! 🥭🌱

To give this tree a much better chance of getting established, we purchased a Pop-A-Shade by Pop-A-Shade to provide some relief from that intense midday Arizona sun. ☀️

Pop-A-Shade was actually developed right here in Arizona, and so far I’m impressed with how well built it is. It seems like a great option when you need temporary shade protection for smaller plants without putting up a permanent shade structure.

As the Carrie mango grows, I’ll probably need to add a taller stake so I can raise the shade above the canopy. But one thing I really like is that it can easily be collapsed and stored away when we don’t need it.

Hopefully a little midday protection while it gets established will help our Carrie mango settle into its new home at Epic Yard Farm. 💚

I purchased this Pop-A-Shade from SummerWinds Nursery - Arizona in Mesa. You can find them in all three Summerwinds locations around town.

08/30/2026

Happy Sunday! 🌱 Hope everyone got to enjoy the cooler morning here in the Valley today. It felt so nice to be outside!

We took advantage of the beautiful morning to welcome a new addition to the garden. 🥭 Our new Carrie mango is taking the place of the two avocado trees that unfortunately didn’t make it in our raised bed planter.

Carrie is actually one of the first mango varieties we planted years ago at Epic Yard Farm 1.0, and it produced some absolutely delicious mangoes for us. So when it came time to choose something new for this spot, bringing Carrie back felt like an easy choice.

Now we get to care for this beautiful little tree, help it get established, and hopefully enjoy homegrown Carrie mangoes again in the years ahead. 💚🥭

To give it a good start, we amended the planting hole with Arizona's Best Soil Sulfur and Magic Flower from Earth's Original Organics. Now it’s time to let those roots get settled in!

08/21/2026

Happy Friday! ☀️🌴

We started the morning with another Black Sphinx date harvest, just under 2 lbs from one cluster, with plenty more still ripening on the palm!

Black Sphinx is one of my favorite things we grow, not just because the fresh dates are incredibly soft, juicy, and honey-sweet, but because of their unique connection to Phoenix. This rare variety originated as a chance seedling discovered in Arcadia in 1928 and is rarely grown commercially because the fruit is so delicate and perishable.

Almost 100 years later, we’re growing and harvesting a little piece of Phoenix food history right in our own backyard. 💕

I put together a new Epic Yard Farm Field Notes blog post with more photos from this morning’s harvest, the story behind Black Sphinx, how we harvest them, and a little about our other date palm, Barhi. 🌴

Read the full story on EpicYardFarm.com:
https://epicyardfarm.com/black-sphinx-date-harvest-8-21-2026/

And stay tuned—we’re working on a YouTube video after harvest season sharing what we’ve learned about growing, pollinating, protecting, and harvesting date palms in the Arizona desert!

08/17/2026

Sometimes the simplest dinners are the best. 😋

Tonight’s dinner was air-fried spiced chicken drumsticks served over broken rice, with homemade Vietnamese fish sauce (nước chấm) spooned over everything. On the side, a bowl of fresh salad harvested straight from our Gardyn hydroponic system. 🌱

Nothing fancy, just crispy chicken, rice, a really good nước chấm, and some freshly harvested greens. This is pretty much my kind of dinner. 🍗🍚🥬