Learn About Squash and Giant Pumpkins- on Saturday!

Saturday, May 25
10am – 12pm

Earth Care Community Garden
Country Club and Jaguar (Next to Southside Library)

Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class on how to grow a giant pumpkin. She has extensive experience in growing vegetables on her 2000 square foot garden using all organic methods. In 2011, she had a 448lb pumpkin named Mad Max that won the largest pumpkin in the state. She will discuss squash bugs, row cover and maintenance for large squash plants. Follow her blog at giantveggiegardener.com.   Master Gardeners will receive 1 CE credit.

At noon, the garden is hosting their potluck and beginning work day for those that are interested in joining the garden for $25 per year.

Contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403

Bee and Garden Classes

The pollination process is necessary for most of our important food crops. Home Grown New Mexico is giving three classes in June to help people understand how to garden to attract these pollinators.

We will also host two homes with bees in the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour in Santa Fe on July 28th and in Corrales on August 11th.  Keep looking for fundraising ticket sales on this website.

Look at the COMMUNITY CALENDAR for more details on other gardening, beekeeping, cooking classes and other community homesteading classes.

Saturday, June 1st from 9am-11am
Pollinator Garden Planning
(Please RVSP for Class)
Earth Care Community Garden
(Jaguar and Country Club, by Southside Library in Santa Fe, NM)
Home Grown New Mexico and Earth Care
• Loretta McGrath will discuss which plants pollinators love
•Cost $10 suggested donation
For more information: 505-473-1403/homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com

Saturday, June 15th from 10am-12pm
Bees & Pollination Class
Home Grown New Mexico (Please RSVP for Class)
Santa Fe Skies- Indoor Class
14 Browncastle Ranch (end of Cerrillos at Hwy 14 &599) in Santa Fe, NM
• With Ken Bower
• Learn about fruit trees and honeybees
• Enjoy Breakfast from Crumpackers!
•Cost $10 suggested donation
Contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403

Saturday, June 29 from 10am-12pm
Pollinator Garden Planning
Skarsgard Farms Urban Agriculture Education Center
3435 Stanford Drive NE in Albuquerque, NM
Home Grown New Mexico and Skarsgard Farms
• Loretta McGrath will discuss which plants pollinators love
•Cost $10 suggested donation
For more information: 505-473-1403/homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com

Container Garden Tips from Bob Ross

From Bob Ross in a flat container garden

Bob Ross gave a great class at our April potluck and we wanted to share it online. He has a weekly radio show on KSFR called Gardens, Food, and Santa Fe at 10am on Saturdays and opened a new container garden store in the Farmers Market building called Gardens. Customers can learn to create their own with his classes or have one designed one for them. While the primary focus is decorative he will help create food gardens. His inspiration came from gardeners around the country, including Flora Grubb from her location in San Francisco.

Beautiful, Bountiful & Easy

By Bob Ross at rwrlink@gmail.com or 501-2740

A container garden is a space with beautiful plants that drains well, has great plant selections and is in a lovely container for your space. It can be indoors or outdoors.

Seven Tips for Successful Container Gardens
1. Select the best containers for you
2. Create good drainage
3. Use the best planting mix without fertilizer (MetroMix 702 with Green Moss)
4. Be thoughtful with the plant selection and experiment
5. Manage your container placement
6. Feed your container gardens (MaxSea seeweed)
7. Maintain your creation

Thrill, Fill & Spill

Typically, but not always, container garden plant arrangements are planned around three design concepts: thrill, fill and spill. The thrill provides height, fill are middle height plants, usually full and often billowy and the spill specimens spread out and trail over the side of the container.

A few of the 2013 Container Plant Favorites

Bouvardia ternifolia
Japonica Striped Maize (plant 6″ apart for full color)
‘Blonde Ambition’ Blue Grama Grass
Allium fistulosum ‘Nabechan’
Goodwin Creek Lavender
Nasturtium
Gaura ‘Pink Cloud’
Calamagrostis actuflora ‘Karl Forerster’ Grass
Melianthus major ‘Purple Haze’

Dependable Co-Stars

Artemesia ‘Brocade’
Dichrondra ‘Emerald Falls’
Wire Vine
Purple, White & Pink Trailing Petunia
Gaillardia ‘Arizona Apricot’
Heuchera
Coleus
Agastache

How to Grow the Best Tomato- Class on Saturday!

Jannine Cabossel gave a wonderful speech at the Spring Garden Fair last weekend on growing vegetables.  Here is a picture of her tomatoes!  She is ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Farmers Market and has a large artisan garden.

This Saturday, you can come and have a two-hour intensive on the best way to plant the tomato seedlings at a community garden.  Jannine Cabossel and Duskin Jasper are both Master Gardeners and have their ways of starting the tomato plants from seed, things to plant with the seedling and how to care for your plant.  Very interesting to see different techniques and ideas for a vegetable. Come help us plant!

How to Grow the Best Tomato
$5 donation for non-Milagro Gardeners
Saturday, May 4
10am-12pm
Milagro Community Garden in Santa Fe
Rodeo Road and Legacy

Please RSVP for this class

Presented with Milagro Community Garden at milagrogarden@yahoo.com

Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class with Master Gardener Duskin Jasper on how to grow the best tomatoes. They have tips on what to put in the ground when planting, how to protect them, disease control, how to care for the plant and harvesting.  Planting tomato seedlings and a two-hour intensive on tomato tips in the class.

Jannine has extensive experience in growing vegetables on her 4000 square foot garden using all organic methods. Follow her blog at giantveggiegardener.com.

Spring Freeze Warning

The snow is starting to fall for our freeze tonight and tomorrow night in Santa Fe.  It is forecast to be 25 degrees tonight so cover your vegetable plants tonight. The cool season crops can take a freeze so spinach, kale, swiss chard and cabbage can live if they are covered with row cover. If you are brave and have warm season plants outside, they need to be covered with row cover and some plastic to keep it warm overnight.  Take off the plastic in the morning when the sun comes back so your plants do not get too hot.

What is Row Cover?
Row Cover is a material that allows UV rays from the sun and air through to continue to grow the plants while they are covered for wind or cold weather. It can also stay on the plants while you water so leave it on until June. You can buy at local nurseries such as Payne’s. This was discussed in the season extension class last weekend and it can be ordered in larger amounts online.

Let us know your tips for the spring freeze.

To Till or Not to Till in Spring Gardens?

Spring has started and many are preparing their community, home and school gardens. Building soil is important in New Mexico. Jermaine Theragood provided a class today on how to add aged horse manure, soil amendments and compost to create soil.   He discussed how to top dress the soil around plants and use a broadfork to add holes in the soil without tilling a garden. He does not use a rototiller to start new gardens. Jermaine builds the soil sustainability without the use of fossil fuels with his broadfork.

What is a broadfork? It is a large garden fork that is two feet wide. Work on a large garden by using your body weight to insert and move the tool instead of your back and arms. This does not break up the soil, but allows additional space. Eliot Coleman writes about gardening year round and uses this concept for deep aeration of soil while preserving the structure and minimizing weed seed surfacing. This broadfork is one of the handiest tools for turning a garden bed.

Steve Dulfer from Dulfermetal makes broadfork in Santa Fe so we do not have to pay for shipping. It makes preparing your soil easy. 

Description from website: All steel construction with hardened tines make it lightweight and durable.  Cushioned rubber grips on 48″ handles make it comfortable and easy to use.  The 15″ width is just right for a planting row.  Simply step on the crossbar to drive the tines into the soil and pull the handles back toward you to break up and aerate lumpy soil ten inches deep.  Makes preparing new beds or turning in compost and other amendments a snap.

This is a great tool to add to your garden collection. It is less expensive than borrowing a tiller and maintains the soil in large pieces to keep the soil structure.

Santa Fe Seed Exchange and Classes

If you are looking for seeds and ideas for your vegetable garden, come to our February and March classes and seed exchanges.

Seed saving and seed exchanges are important to Home Grown New Mexico so we have five or six classes scheduled this year.  You can learn about them on the COMMUNITY CALENDAR or the EDUCATION CLASSES menus. We hope that people will attend to learn how to plan their gardens, techniques on saving seeds and how to harvest seeds. Come even if you have not saved seeds and want to learn the basics.

The two seed exchanges that we held last year are back!  The Cool Season Seed Exchange will be at our February Potluck and we worked with the City Parks Division to host the Santa Fe Seed Exchange in March.  See below for details on the first two classes and these seed exchanges.  Home Grown New Mexico hopes that you come to these, even if you have not saved seeds.  We will have plenty to share.

Home Garden Seed Saving
Saturday, February 23 from 10-12pm
Whole Foods on Cerrillos
Community Room in front of store
Home Grown New Mexico class
Please RSVP for class
Save seeds from your home garden and share them with the community. Amy Hetager has gardened since she was six years old and understands how to save seeds for a home garden.  She has information from Native Seeds, Organic Seed Alliance and Seed Matters. She will prepare you for the seed exchanges. Please bring your seeds and he can review them in the class. We also want to hear your stories and feedback.
Suggested $10 donation or become a 2013 Member for $35 with $250 value and all free classes, potlucks and tour.

Seed Saving Techniques
Saturday, March 9 from 10am-12pm
Railyard Community Room (behind SITE Santa Fe)
Home Grown New Mexico and Railyard Stewards
Please RSVP for Class
This class is an introduction to seed saving, including considerations for planning your garden with seed saving in mind. We will look at how pollination happens in various species, and how this affects things like population sizes and isolation techniques. You will learn practical ways to ensure high-quality seed. Time allowing we will also look at plant selection and rogueing, as well as seed labeling protocol and seed storage requirements. Later classes will include hands-on techniques for harvest in fall 2013.

Kirsten Szykitka has worked at Arch Noah seed farm and show garden in Austria. She was the Education Coordinator at Abundant Life Seed Foundation (which later became the Organic Seed Alliance). She continues to be enchanted by the power and spirit held within the seed. Suggested $10 donation or become a 2013 Member for $35 with $250 value and all free classes, potlucks and tour.

Cool Season Seed Exchange
Tuesday, February 26 at 6:30pm
Whole Foods on St. Francis in Community Room behind store
Home Grown New Mexico Potluck
We will have Skarsgard Farms CSA and the Santa Fe Community Farm speak at our potluck. The seed exchange will be in the same space and there are plenty of seeds available so come even if you do not have any to share.

Santa Fe Seed Exchange
Wednesday, March 20 from 4pm-7pm
Frenchy’s Barn on Agua Fria and Osage Ave.

The City Parks Division and Home Grown New Mexico are hosting this event for all community gardens, school gardens and home gardeners. There are plenty of seeds available so come even if you do not have any to share.

If you have questions, please contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or at 473-1403.

Winter Garden Update

Fresh greens and herbs in January?  You can have them in Santa Fe. Winter gardening takes some planning in the late summer and fall to prepare a covered space for a winter garden.

A winter garden will save money buying expensive perennial herbs and cooking greens. Parsley, oregano and thyme can grow inside of a hoop house or cold frame to use in the winter. These are all perennial herbs that can live through frost and will live inside of a place with a warmer daytime temperature.  The herb starts are the best thing to plant in August to grow larger for the winter. A community garden has parsley growing and we do not have to purchase it at the grocery store.

Cooking greens taste wonderful as a side dish or mixed into soups. These include Swiss Chard, Kale, Collard Greens and Arugula.  Some heavier lettuce can also grow in colder temperatures. Planting the seeds inside of a hoop house or cold frame in August or early September will have them large enough to eat during the winter. January has less light so the greens do not grow as quickly, but late February and March are prime time to harvest these and save money from purchasing. Here is a great way to cook your greens.

Here are some tips to start your garden and updates on the community garden’s harvest.

1. Build a hoop house or cold frame in your yard.  Here are some tips.

2. Take the temperature. A simple thermometer that takes the temperature of your cooking turkey can be taken outside to measure the soil temperature. The soil can freeze and still have these plants live, but it should stay above 40 degrees for them to be edible. We have used a larger hoop house and smaller (2′ hoops and row cover) inside to keep the temperature higher this winter.

3. Use water to raise the temperature. We moved 55 gallon drums into the hoop house and filled them with water to keep a few degrees higher at night.  Take the temperature with your kitchen oven thermometer.

4. Keep the doors closed when it is cold.  These past few weeks have had a closed hoop house at the community garden. We open the doors when the temperature is above 50 degrees and close them at night.  You can also purchase a heat sync to open the windows without going to the hoop house each day.

Seed Saving Ideas

Last week we held our last potluck of 2012 and had Richard Bernard (from Pojoaque Pueblo Farmers Market, Greenhouse and Farm as well as Seeds of Change) to discuss what we needed to do in Santa Fe to increase seed saving. Pablo Navrot from our board presented a TEDx talk titled, Restoring Agricultural Diversity Through Backyard Seed Saving, on Saturday to start people thinking about how they can save seeds in their home gardens.  We have started this discussion and are planning more classes and discussions in 2013.

Let us know your feedback.  What do you want to learn?  Is there a type of seed that you want to save? Have you created any new varieties in your garden?

Here are some 2013 Events for Seed Saving
Bring  any seeds to share with others in a packet from the store or that you saved. You can also bring envelopes or small baggies and a marking pen. We will have a seed saving class to show people how to label seeds with year, seed type and other information.

Home Grown New Mexico Potluck
Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 6:30pm
Whole Foods on St. Francis in Community Room
Cool Season Seed Exchange Table During Potluck

Santa Fe Seed Exchange
Wednesday, March 20, 2013 from 4pm – 7pm
Frenchy’s Barn
Parks Division of Santa Fe and Home Grown New Mexico

Tips for Freeze Below 30 Degrees

Santa Fe has had a nice, warm October with a few short freezes.  This week it is forecast to be below 30 degrees and will most likely freeze on Friday night. You can garden year round in Santa Fe and here are some tips to close out your warm season garden and start a winter garden.

1. Harvest all of the fruits and vegetables from tomato, cucumber, chile and summer squash before Friday.  The vegetables and especially tomatoes can be frozen overnight.  Green tomatoes can be picked as well and stored on the counter in newspaper or a paper bag to ripen. These warm season plants will die if it stays cold for a longer period at night so many people will take those plants out and compost them. It will be warmer again next week so you could cover them with row cover and blankets for the freezing nights to see if they will stay in your garden longer.

2. Cool season plants, like kale, swiss chard, broccoli and root vegetables should be fine through this first frost. These plants are frost tolerant. Cover your plants with row cover, a blanket or tarp to keep them from freezing.  Use rocks or bricks to keep the blanket around the plants.  Sticks, small rebar or dowels could be placed into the dirt around the plants to keep the blanket from crushing the plants.

What is Row Cover?
Row Cover is a material that allows UV rays from the sun and air through to continue to grow the plants while they are covered for wind or cold weather. It can also stay on the plants while you water them during the winter. There is a thicker row cover for winter that will allow the plants to live in nights that freeze. You can purchase row cover at local nurseries or order larger rolls online. Payne’s Nursery has local row cover and Johnny’s has rolls for a lower price. You can place the row cover directly over plants and use rocks to hold it down instead of buying all of the staples and wires for the short term.

What Plants Can I Grow in the Winter?
Greens are the best plant to grow in the winter in Santa Fe. We have lots of sun and expanding temperatures in the early fall.  The greens can grow from seed as it is getting colder in October and November inside of a hoop house.  Here are some tips on starting a hoop house. Once the ground is frozen in December, the plants will halt their growing but stay alive until there is more sun and warmer temperatures in the spring. Swiss Chard, Kale, Romaine Lettuce, Arugula and Spinach all will grow over the winter with a hoop house.

Let us know your tips for a freeze in Santa Fe. We would love to see some green tomato recipes and ways that you store your herbs and vegetables.