Keeping Fruit Trees Alive in the Vicious Desert

Happy, thriving trees! 

When my wife and I moved to Arizona from Chicago, we had quite a gardening wake up call. In Illinois, the dirt is so fertile that I could sneeze outside and a month later I would have a harvest of whatever I had eaten for breakfast the day of the sneeze. Arizona, with its incredible heat, terrible soil, and overall mocking attitude towards gardeners was quite a different story. 

Originally I had given up on the idea of gardening. But after seeing a garden that some junior high students at my school grew in their science class, I though, "If goofy teenagers can grow a garden, surely I can figure this out."