Garden

"The garden makes the gardener." Wendy Johnson

THEN:

Hoop house over one of the two longest backyard raised beds.
Dwight completed it just in time to set out the Cascadia pea starts.

Late Winter with Cascadia peas just planted into the soil.

NOW:

West end of long hoop house with Cascadia peas plants
removed (we had an abundant crop!)
now with tomatillo, brussels sprouts
and Chinese  cabbage.

Midsection of long hoop house
with lemon cucumbers, kohlrabi
and the ferny plants are asparagus
which is very slow growing here
in the high mountain desert of Santa Fe, NM.

East end of long hoop house with Shin Kurolda carrots (my very favorite!),
Wild Garden lettuce mix (also my all time very favorite lettuce mix!),
Summer savory, Genovese basil and bulbing fennel just emerging;
and on the far end are another tomatillo plant and more asparagus plants.

The second raised bed which is closer to the house is now devoted to mostly to tomatoes. Unlike most vegetables tomatoes like to grow year after year in the same area. Previous years' tomatoes grew in the raised bed that is now the above depicted hoop house so alas, now the tomatoes have to adjust to a different location.

The varieties of tomatoes are Snow White Cherry, Chocolate Cherry and Chadwick's Cherry.
The larger variety of tomatoes are Black Krim and Cherokee Purple (both heirlooms)
as well as Fireworks which is a more recent creation and "best grown in a dry climate".

Along the North side of the house on either side of the slim 500 gallon catchment tank are seven large Italian clay pots with Silvery Fir Tree tomato plants. This is my all time very favorite red tomato variety which I learned of in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. If any of you avid gardners have not read it, I highly recommend reading this wonderful book. Among these tomato plants are nasturtiums and Genovese  basil. All of the plants in these pots are flourishing this year as I have finally figured out the right soil amendments.

To grow vibrant healthy plants in the red colored soil here, so unlike the rich black soil I learned to garden in while a child in Iowa, requires ambitious feeding. The single very best additive is locally produced worm castings by Reunity Resources. Other additives (which I order from KiS Organics) that I now use include alfalfa meal, Azomite, feather meal, kelp meal, green sand and oyster shell flour. At MuRefuge I only used Azomite, feather meal and oyster shell flour, all of which I purchased at Harmony Farm Supply. The green sand, of which I was unfamiliar while living in California, seems to be crucial for the high mountainous desert soil. And I have to be very vigilant when applying the feather meal because Shasta thinks it is very tasty.

Between the front of the first long raised bed and along the back portal cement is a narrow strip of planting space now filled with four circles of Ashworth sweet corn, which is an heirloom with "full bodied old fashioned sweet corn flavor", one each of Yellow Crookneck Squash and Costata Romanesca Squash (zucchini), and four Minnesota Midget Melons. The latter are split between the two middle corn circles. 

Shasta loves nibbling on the melon leaves
which Dwight think are beautiful to look at.

We have already harvested two meals of  the two Summer squash . . . delish! as well as made zucchini muffins and cake. And small little melons have begun to appear. With this second planting of corn the tassels are beginning to appear.

Between the walkway to the shed and the East facing ends of the two long vegetable beds, there is also a planting strip in which circles have been planted with "the Three Sisters": beans, corn and squash. Into these circles the corn was planted the earliest and we are about ready to pick our first ears of corn. The corn, as usually happened in Iowa when I was growing up, was not ready for the 4th of July celebrating. It seems to me that germination is slower here . . . the climate? the soil even though it is fed well with nourishing nutrients? or am I just more impatient since the garden is so visible and requires attentive watering which is done by hand, not automatically?

The two varieties of Winter squash are from Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson, Arizona. One variety is Navajo Hubbard; the second is Rio Lucio Pumpkin which is not the typical Cinderella pumpkin but rather a rustic looking Winter squash. This is my first growing of both of these so I am looking forward to eating the results.

Rio Lucio Pumpkin
a Winter squash in its early development.

And then there is the small hoop house where arugula grows most all Winter.

Now there are peppers growing among the carrots which you can see below: 

Below you can see onions growing among the Wild Garden lettuce mix, which contains all the kinds of lettuces grown on their farms, and more carrots.

The grass growing in the front of this small hoop house is (Bouteloua gracilis)   blue grama grass. It is a long lived, warm season perennial grass, native to North America. This beautiful grass, and new to me, is most commonly found from Alberta, Canada, east to Manitoba and south across the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and U.S. Midwest. It flourishes here and is often used in reclamation projects. It seems to me a very cheery grass.

Even here in the high mountain desert I continue to "companion" plant. I find companion edibles planted together thrive as though there is magical synergy. And some plants produce above the ground while others bulb below the soil line so the root formations are different.

Gardening, as I like to say, is not for the faint of heart here where the growing season is short and the days in Summer are HOT, hotter this year than any previous year we have been here. Presently the heat is a major topic of conversation among our neighbors here on short circle within Casa Alegre, a Stamm home development of the 1950's. It also is the weather person's primary focus during the local weather we watch on an Albuquerque television station.

I find this gardener . . . me, to be contemplative as I water and weed although I must say there are very few weeds since the entire yard (front, side and back) has been heavily mulched. I am connected with the garden: the fruit orchard, vegetables and the native habitat, in a way I was not at MuRefuge which was a bigger space and in "the country". This gardener is more focused and filled with awe and enjoyment BEing in her garden.

People walk by and often stop with questions about the mulching process, where the native plants were purchased and the water catchment storage tanks. Many individuals have delightful comments on the beauty of the "design" or wondering who was used to create the "design"? I find it extremely curious that many are surprised that the plants in the front and side yards are all natives and are so spectacularly beautiful especially now that the bushes and perennials are in full bloom.

The "spent" penstemon flower stocks are chock full of seeds which, especially on the Rocky Mountain penstemons, are now almost inhaled by the Goldfinches. These precious little birds are seen hopping about the stocks especially in mid morning when it has yet to reach the high 90 degree temperatures common last and this week.

As we garden, whether in pots or the ground, or thoroughly revel in another's garden, may we