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.

How to Make Jerky

Making jerky is and easy process and fun to do. You can create it out of beef, turkey or other meat that was hunted like deer or elk. Jennifer and her father David Fresquez from Monte Vista Organic Farm provided a class to Home Grown New Mexico to 25 students in February.  Here are some of the highlights if you want to make jerky.

• The process of making jerky will reduce the meat to 1/4 of the original size.
• Select meat with a low fat content to reduce the fat in the finished product. Fat tends to spoil and oxidize more quickly than pure muscle
which will keep for a VERY long time.
• Slice the meat along the grain and in thin pieces. Roll the meat to get it to be smaller.  If you are having the butcher do the slicing for you remind them to do it on a slicer if possible and to slice with the grain of the meat. Also, when determining the slicing thickness remember that thickness will reduce to 1/4 of the original size.
• Season with a mix in a recycled spice bottle with a shaker top. This can include salt, onion, garlic, pepper, brown sugar and chile to add to each side of the meat
• A dehydrator at 145 degrees is the best for your jerky. This temperature kills disease in turkey.
• Another option is to roast in the oven for 10 hours on 200 degrees
• Store in a paper bag or container to let air in and out for summer.

Enjoy your jerky!

Our Zero Waste Goal

Home Grown New Mexico has had a goal to be zero waste since our first potluck on March 29, 2011. We asked people to bring their own dishes, silverware and cups to our first potluck.  Most people brought them!  They have continued to bring them to the next two years of potlucks.  Last summer a potluck attendee rode a bike and did not have a plate so he asked if he could use one of our reusable plates and apologized.  You are all a great group that has your own zero waste goal.

We use #5 recycled plates, cups and dishes that can be washed and reused. Preserve products can be purchased locally. They are attractive for dishes that we recycle at each event and fundraiser.  The cost was less than our 2011 paper plates and cups. The silverware that we selected can be composted, but we work with lower heat in our compost and it will not work at the community gardens.  We wash and reuse it. It is important to look at the contents of all products because corn is often used and has GMO and may also include plastic.  This will cause issues in compost piles and many places have stopped it.  What are your goals at the next potluck that you attend and see paper plates used?  Do you have your zero waste goals?

I met Jessie Emerson at the Community College giving a Zero Waste presentation. She is the Zero Waste Coordinator for the Northern New Mexico Sierra Club and has a lot of good ideas for her zero waste mission.  The class can help you decide how you can reduce waste.

Zero Waste
Railyard Community Room
(park behind SITE Santa Fe and go to metal buildings)
Sunday, March 10 at 1pm-3pm
Presented by Home Grown New Mexico and Railyard Stewards
Please RSVP for Class

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.

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.

Butternut Squash Soup Recipe

Cold winter days are a great time to use squash to make soup.  Butternut squash has a nice flavor and tastes wonderful when roasted. This is an easy recipe to create a vegetarian soup. You can also roast the squash and then freeze to use within a year.

If you have squash bugs, butternut is the best winter squash to grow.  These squash came from my community garden where we have lots of squash bugs. They did not come to my plot or invade the squash plants. Six were grown on the fence in 2012. You can also purchase organic squash at the Farmers Market or local grocery stores like Whole Foods or the Coop. They will last all winter if stored in a cool place.

Butternut Squash Soup Recipe
3 lbs Butternut squash (multiple squash can be roasted)
1 Can of Lite Coconut Milk
2 tsps of Garlic Pepper
2 tsps of Italian Spice (or dried basil, oregano and marjoram)

Cover the squash with olive oil and roast in the oven for an hour on 400 degrees. You will not need to cut the squash to roast it. Let the squash cool and then remove the inside into a pot. Add the coconut milk and spices and cook for 20 minutes. Let the soup cool enough to strain. Use a strainer to remove the large pieces of squash. See photo above for the type that I use.  You can use many types of strainers. Use a ladle to add the soup and push it through the strainer. Enjoy the soup!

Amy Hetager, Blogger for Home Grown New Mexico