Gardening should be possible in the southwest, but you may have to utilize greenhouses or whatever the opposite of one is. Much of the "desert" will bloom if you pour enough water on it (and drip irrigation does wonders).

But you can't do a "midwest" style garden.

Right, and we're used to that style of gardening (and tropical, we've lived all over). Here the main problems are that the soil is completely garbage, it never rains, and there's too much sun. She's had limited success planting things in large bags full of garden soil, watering every day, and building a system of shades from the afternoon sun - it's just a big hassle compared to gardening in a lot of the eastern side of the US.

Yep. The first can be repaired, the second compensated for, but the third is the killer. You either have to vastly move the growing season (growing in winter seems strange) or you have to learn new tricks that don't "feel right" like growing things up against a building to get shade half the day.

Composting can be a great way to improve the soil, but it takes years to really get going. But if you're going to be there for years ...

And maybe you could even get "donations" from neighbors! I know one person who setup compost jars for her neighbors to get more compostables.

Gardening isn't easy to get started. Most people end up living in houses that have poor soil (fill dirt) and dont realize how much you need to water to have success. Automatic irrigation with sprinklers and timers is critical otherwise things will die while you go on vacation. Your gardening season is probably offset from the rest of the country with a dead zone in the July/august when you get heat kill.

My wife for example likes to water for 5-10 seconds and that basically does nothing, you have to water significantly more as you need to put down 1/2" a day or more during the peak. It would take forever to do that with just a garden house and the pots you have can probably barely hold the water required to last a day. Reference https://earlywarning.usgs.gov/ssebop/modis for you area.

Also if you aren't buying compost by the truck load you probably aren't buying enough. For the first run you need like 6+ yards to fill up a couple beds, and the next year that will decompose to half and you will need to fill up again. Spend a bit more buy the good stuff (ask online whats good locally), the city waste compost is not great stuff has plastic and shit you will never get out plus it holds water poorly due to all the filler they add.

Thanks, I love the idea of living in this kind of a neighborhood. I have been living in an apartment building for close to a decade now and I don't know a single person on my floor or in my building. I don't even know who my neighbor is.