Seeds Starting Recap

Reblogged from Seeds & Stones:

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Last Saturday I gave a public class on Seed Starting at Earth Care community garden.  It went well and was well attended but made me realize a few things.....One was that a little re-cap may be useful,  as people tend to have the same questions and quandaries about starting seeds indoors.

Seed Selection- Save your own, Trade, Share, Swap...If you are to buy seed go for heirlooms, locally appropriate and organic. 

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Erin provided a wonderful class on starting your seeds. Here is a great review to help people start their seeds. April is a great time to get seeds moving for Santa Fe's estimated May 15 last frost date.

We are in the News!

Home Grown New Mexico was published in two local magazines this month.

Great-grandma Sarah, father John Hetager and Amy Hetager at age three

Green Fire Times published an article about how Home Grown New Mexico started two years ago.  Amy Hetager and Duskin Jasper were founding board members with the idea to teach people to save money at home.  Gardening is the largest way that people are saving money. Check out the article for a list of our classes in April and May.  We are opening a chapter in Albuquerque this year for a Corrales Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour on August 11th.  Look for potlucks and classes there in 2013.

Local Flavor asked us for a recipe to spread on freshly baked bread. We loved the pesto that we made in Local Organic Meals on a Budget updated with arugula and pecans. Arugula is coming up with the early greens.  One of my community gardens at Milagro has it in the hoop house from winter.

Thank you for supporting us!

Planting Peas

Reblogged from Community Gardens:

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Peas should be planted on St. Patrick's Day or in the following weeks.  Holidays are my dates for planting and March 17 has enough sun and warmth to grow peas in Santa Fe.  The pea plants will stop growing in hot weather.  Plant them early to have a harvest before the hot weather arrives in June.

Here are some photos from Milagro Community Garden where we planted them the last week in March.  

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Welcome to the new website for Santa Fe Community Gardens. Home Grown New Mexico is hosting it for 2013 to see people post information on planting, critters, community and other topics that community gardeners can discuss. We hope that you will visit this site at santafecommunitygardens.com

Vegetable Gardens in City Parks

Santa Fe has nine community gardens.  Most of them were built by the City Parks Division in local parks since 2009. The newest one for 2013 is Cielo Vista Park off Agua Fria.  The locations in city parks are open from April through October. These are all community gardens, meaning that the community has access to lease them each year.

Home Grown New Mexico is working with these gardens to provide support in recruitment, free classes, Santa Fe Seed Exchange on March 20th and the Community Garden Tour on September 14th. March is a great month to look at these as a way to learn more about gardening, meet other gardeners and start to grow your own food.

A community garden is a space where plots of land are leased to families or individuals with access during garden season or year round. There are many other types of gardens in homes, schools and organizations that may not appear on this list. Community Garden plots may still be available if you are interested in joining the gardens in your neighborhood.  They are typically $15-$30 for the year and are 5′x10 to 10′x16′ depending on the garden location. Many have events and classes at the gardens. Here is contact information for the gardens.

Map of Community Garden Tour 2012

1. The City of Santa Fe Community Gardens are Sunny Slope Community Garden, La Familia, Maclovia Community Garden and Frenchy’s Community Garden.  Cielo Vista Park is a new garden in 2013. Contact Jessie Esparza from City Parks Division at 955-2106 for details.

2. Earth Care has a Youth & Community Garden on Country Club and Jaguar. Contact elsa@earthcarenm.org for details.

3. The El Dorado School Community Garden has a  website for more information.

4. The Milagro Community Garden on Rodeo Road is currently accepting new gardeners and has a waiting list. Email milagrogarden@yahoo.com for information.

5.  Railyard Park has a website  www.railyardpark.org for more information on joining the garden and events and workshops.  They currently have two spaces open for 2013.

Join the Community Garden Tour on Saturday, September 14, 2013 to see the gardens and start signing up for the following year.  We will post additional information online.

RSVP for Education Classes

Our first class was “How to Make Jerky” by the Monte Vista Organic Farm and we had 25 attendees. They did a great job showing us how to select meat, cut the jerky, season it and dry it.  (watch for a post on it with photos)

The great thing about the class is we knew how many people were coming, based on our RSVP link.  Eventbrite is the new application that we use to place our free tickets online and allow people to let us know they will attend. It is very easy to RSVP and if you are on Facebook, it is only one click. RSVP for multiple people if your family is coming. You can help get the word out by sharing it on your Facebook. We will not need your ticket. People can also decide not to come and let us know online. Here is what you see when you click to attend.

In 2012, we had a wide variety of people attend our classes.  Some had five people and some had forty people. It is helpful to know how to set-up chairs and the room for the number that we anticipate. This system will also help us to plan events at locations that can serve us in Santa Fe and other cities where we open classes.

This application also has our contact phone and email if you have questions about the class in the top right corner.  There is a map if you are confused which Whole Foods or other location (this Saturday the class is at Whole Foods on Cerrillos). It will also give the description of the class and a photo.

Home Grown New Mexico would also like feedback from our classes. There will be a card available at each class to give us details on the instructor, class and ideas for other classes.

Please give us feedback on this process.  We hope that you will come to the free classes and share us on Facebook.

GMO Foods in the Grocery Stores/Labeling Issue-Part 2

Reblogged from giantveggiegardener:

This is the second part on GMO foods in grocery stores. The first part can be found here. Another big deal in regards to GMOs is lack of labeling. The companies that sell GE produce or use GE foods in their products are not required to label their products that may contain some GE foods in them. Pharmaceutical drugs must have labeling, artificial sweeteners have labeling, cigarette companies have labeling but GE or GMO foods do not have to have labeling.

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Here is a great series of articles from Jannine Cabossel on labeling genetically engineered foods in our state. There is a petition to sign in the post and come to our potluck on Tuesday, Jan 29 to meet Food and Water Watch www.foodandwaterwatch.org and get involved in the process.

Fall Bee Honey Harvest

Reblogged from giantveggiegardener:

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It is now almost January but I must share something that is very exciting for a first year beekeeper. I was able to harvest 12 jars of honey last fall from 3.5 bars of honeycomb before I put the bees to bed for winter last October. I still left them 14 bars full of honey and brood to survive the winter which should be more than enough food for them.

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Happy New Year! Hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are ready for 2013. We are planning all of our classes and potlucks. Hope you can come on Tuesday, January 29th at 6:30 in Whole Foods on St. Francis and Cordova. Here is a great post on bees from Jannine Cabossel.

Thank you to our Volunteers and Donors

2012 has been a great year with monthly potlucks, free classes and the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour.  We appreciate all of the volunteers and donations received to keep this moving forward. We could not have done the events without you.  Thank you!

November and December are worked on planning 2013.  Class topics and presenters, potluck presentations and the Kitchen Garden and Coop Tour.   We are also working to become a 501c3 and update our website resources. Send us any ideas.

Home Grown New Mexico and Edible Santa Fe will hold the 3rd Annual Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour in Santa Fe on Sunday, July 28 and we are looking for great edible gardens, backyard chicken coops, goats, bees and your sustainable homestead. Send us your garden to be considered for the tour. Contact Amy at homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403 with your submission to be considered for the tour in Feb 2013.  Keep watching our website for more tour details.

Growing Your Own Garlic

Garlic is a wonderful aromatic that can be used as a spice to enhance many winter stews, sauces and dishes. Many people will add it to many raw dishes such as salad dressings, salsas and slaws.  Different varieties of garlic have a great taste, but many people have not tasted them if they buy it in the grocery store. The garlic that you can buy in the store has been said to be 75% as a soft neck variety and mild in flavor. Plant your own this year and enjoy the hearty taste of German varieties, Chesnook red garlic, Fireball (purple shell) and Purple Italian garlic.

Garlic is one thing that you can plant in October in Santa Fe.  The colder climates can have garlic growing over the winter due to the temperatures needed to start the growing process and then the heat to form bulbs.  Most people plant after the first frost, which is usually October 15th in northern New Mexico.  Plant by Halloween as an easy date to remember and you will harvest by the Fourth of July.

What is garlic?

Garlic is in the Lily Family with a Latin name of Allium sativum and is similar to onions, shallots and leeks.  It reproduces from itself so find a garlic that you enjoy.  You can also plant shallots and onion sets in the fall.  Local nurseries will have these dried items to start.

Garlic grows well in New Mexico because it needs a higher pH of 5.5-7.0 and most soil is alkaline at pH of 7.0 in the area.  It also can be grown in full sun with partially drained soil.  The temperature that is needed to start growing is 45-60 degrees in the fall and then 75 degrees when forming bulbs in the summer in the desert.

Why the plant in the fall?

Garlic is hard to start in warm weather.  It does not compete well with weeds so fall is a better time to plant once it freezes and weeds are gone.  It needs the cooler weather to start growing, even though you can buy starts and have them grow. The taste is also improved with the cold winter and the hot summer before it is harvested in July.

Seed

The seed is a clove of garlic.  This can be from a head of garlic.  Be careful where you buy the head of garlic.  I have seen a statistic that 75% of garlic is imported and will be a soft neck variety with mild flavor.  It is important not to purchase garlic to grow at the grocery store, unless it is organic and they list the variety. There are two main types of garlic, hard neck and soft neck.

Hard Neck Garlic- Large cloves, fewer on each head

Soft Neck Garlic- Smaller cloves, more on each head and has a longer storage life

Purchase your garlic from a trusted grower that either uses organic methods or a no-chemical approach like biodynamic farming.  You can also purchase seed garlic from a nursery that has picked the larger cloves of garlic to produce a larger yeild.  Check with your favorite nursery to get local garlic.  In Santa Fe,Plants of the Southwest has a wide variety of different hard neck and soft neck garlic.  The size of the garlic cloves is important.  The large cloves will grow smaller when reproduced so look for a larger head. Buying garlic at a seed company will also provide a higher growing level to your planting, but is more expensive. These have produced better garlic crops in New Mexico. There is a store in Colorado that focuses on garlic and the Seed Savers Exchange.

Where to Plant?

• The space will be planted until July, so make sure that you can provide that much space in your garden.  You will not be able to plant spring crops there.
• The cloves will be 6″ apart.  Measure the space with a ruler (or measure your hand for 6″) to spread out to estimate.
• Companion Plants- cabbage, beets, lettuce (deters aphids) and squash (may deter squash bugs)
• Not Companion Plants- Beans, peas and potatoes

Soil
Garlic needs drained soil.  Till it with a broad fork or garden fork.  Add compost at a higher rate than for the warm weather vegetables.  You can add 50% compost or manure to the soil before planting the garlic.

Planting

Plant the largest cloves of the head of garlic.  If you purchased seed garlic, they all should be large enough to plant.  The clove faces up at a depth of at least 2″.  Water your garlic until the ground freezes around mid-December in Northern New Mexico.

Mulch
Once the ground freezes in mid-December, cover your garlic bed with 4″-6″ of straw.

Spring
Once the weather is warm enough to move the soil, you can start watering your garlic again.  Leave the straw on until April so that it stays warm under the mulch. Check the garlic before watering to make sure that it needs it. You can place an index finger in the ground and see if it is wet at the tip.

Harvest
When the top leaves are drooping and brown and it is 1/3 looking dying it is time to harvest the garlic.  The Fourth of July is a good date for your harvesting calendar for Santa Fe. You can always check the garlic by digging (do not pull it!) around the garlic and seeing if the heads have formed. When you harvest, make sure that you dig around the head and pull it out with dirt.  You can remove the dirt and store for three weeks before eating.  Tie the tops together and hang in a porch or garage.  Enjoy the garlic!

Re: Mike Water Team Update

Re: Mike was a tour last weekend to look at the future of central Santa Fe and Home Grown New Mexico participated as the Water Team.  The Truck Farm, Pallet Farm and plants for the arroyo were all provided for the event. We had Ben Haggard, Nate Downey, Reese Baker, Pablo Navrot and Richard and Aaron from the story below that gave tours of water catchment sites. We hope to continue work on the water surrounding St. Michael’s and will send more updates on the blog.  This article and photos are by Pablo Navrot.

Home Grown New Mexico’s tours to exemplary storm water harvesting sites

During the Re:Mike event, Home Grown New Mexico led tours to two model sites of precipitation harvesting.  One tour showcased Aaron Kauffman’s's bioretention basins at the La Farge Library just downstream from the Re:Mike event, the other tour was focused on Richard Jennings rainwater harvesting system at Salazar Elementary School.

As explained by Aaron, precipitation in our region is a blessing to the living aspects of the landscape, it provides for the needs of vegetation that improves the comfort of outdoor environments.  However, the intensity of storms, coupled with the increase of surfaces like asphalt and roofs that don’t absorb precipitation, causes unnatural erosion in local arroyos.  During storms, arroyos carry soil, pollutants, and biological wastes downstream, thus, paving the land in one place compromises the quality of a landscape downstream in the watershed.  One intention of Re:Mike was to spotlight measures that show how development can be inclusive of water systems that are both beneficial to that specific site as well as downstream.

The differences between the system showcased at Salazar and La Farge are stark, but they both accomplish a similar goal – to manage stormwater onsite so there are mutual benefits on-site as well as downstream in regional arroyos and rivers.

The watershed improvements carried out by Aaron Kauffman, which were part of a hands-on workshop offered earlier this spring, is a passive system; here, all the working parts are living, and they regenerate in response to moisture present.  Water is captured as it drains off the parking lot, and it is delivered via gravity to planted basins adjacent to the parking to provide shade, windbreak, habitat, pollinator forage, and pollution sequestration.  In contrast, the roof water harvesting at Salazar is an active system, water is harvested, cleaned and pressurized for delivery to the school’s edible garden.  Richard explained that at Salazar, water is initially delivered to a vortex chamber, where the cleaning action takes place, then it is pumped into two underground cisterns for use later. Water storage is available electronically and that it is in both English and Spanish at Salazar.

Home Grown would like to thank Claudia Meyer Horn, Mollie Toll, Christopher Sabo and Richard Jennings for being on-site at Salazar Elementary, and for Aaron Kauffman for leading the tour at La Farge Library.