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

Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour

Click here to buy tickets

We look forward to seeing you on our Second Annual Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour on Sunday, July 29th from 9am-2pm. This event is presented by Home Grown New Mexico and Edible Santa Fe.

The tour is self-paced. Guests will go to the homes in any order that they select with a wrist band to identify them. The homeowners will be the main tour guides, but also have help from the Master Gardeners and volunteers from each location to review edible gardens, chickens, bees and any other self-sustaining items such as solar, water catchment and more.   Cold drinks will be available at each location sponsored by Whole Foods. Revolution Bakery and Joe’s Dining have also sponsored the event.

For questions contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403.

HGNM-TourMap-2012- Note Exit CR-62 is closed on 599

HGNM-TourBios-2012

2012 Locations

Ben Haggard
Artist, designer and educator Ben Haggard uses landscape to create a multi-faceted sculptural environment–one that produces food, habitat, soil regeneration and a cheerful living space.  In his residential garden, water finds a way into the pores of the soil as it is orchestrated with care through the mycorrhizae, roots, stems, and leaves of a myriad of plantings. His sophisticated use of ordinary materials such as steel, vegetation and rock elevate the basic suburban property into a dynamic microcosm. This evolving sculptural process is ecological without being dogmatic, drawing from living systems for guidance and inspiration.  Over the years, many have toured his space looking for instruction on more sustainable and harmonious ways of living.

Dan and Giselle Piburn
Dan and Giselle and their kids, Coleman and Amelie Piburn live in downtown Santa Fe on 1/2 an acre and have an experiment in urban gardening called the Dandelion Ranch. It is a place of practice, where food is grown in one large plot. They have built a group through this sharing garden where it is easier to manage pests and weeds cooperatively with one plot and enjoy lots of good company too. They use recycled materials whenever possible and have a large composting operation. Dandelion Ranch in addition to the large garden area also has chickens, turkeys and a yurt & they are working on a shed structure for an outside kitchen and work station! Come see how an urban garden thrives in the middle of the city.

Lisa Sarenduc
Nestled off of West Alameda in Santa Fe, Lisa has created a group of green vacation lodgings on her property called Suitable Digs. The five lodgings are built using natural materials and are wonderfully eclectic in their design. They include the Sun Room, the Earth Room, the Bunkhouse, the Green Room and a painstakingly restored 1948 Spartan travel trailer.

There are winding pathways that lead to gardens of fruit and flowers and a geodesic dome greenhouse that contains 4 fig trees, a grape arbor with a harvest table for outdoor dining, raised beds of organic vegetables, a new berry garden, and terraced areas of fruit and nut trees.

Suitable Digs cares about sustainability, having a large solar energy array that provides 100% of it’s electrical usage, a 9,000-gallon roof water collection system, two greywater systems, ‘on-demand’ water heaters, and composting toilets in some of the lodgings.  In addition, they make their own compost, recycle all suitable materials, and practice integrated landscaping.

Jamie Hascall and Betsy Brown
Betsy and Jamie are avid cyclists and musicians but offer their passions and talents to gardening. They make use of all space available for food production in their compact suburban yard. Their garden incorporates raised-beds, in-ground plantings, straw-bale-plantings and chickens.  With the skills and knowledge obtained from previous garden efforts, their space includes crops to promote pollinators and beneficial insects.  Fruit trees, hops, vegetables, herbs, and greens are reared using roof-water with strategic climate mitigation techniques as well as city water when needed.  Gardening together and working with nature are their primary guiding principles.  Betsy and Jamie encourage others to not be timid about urban food production.

Christie Green
Christie Green lives in a food forest. She has utilized knowledge and skills she has gained over the last 13 years as owner/designer at Down to Earth,LLC and the newly formed landscape design and consulting firm, Studio Succession to create a perennial edible landscape in the desert. This lush landscape, designed and implemented in phases over the past five years, which includes many fruit trees, grapes, native flowering and fruiting shrubs and perennials nourishes not only her family and friends, but also local wildlife and the land. Her design encourages the rainfall and road runoff to drain/percolate into the soil on her property, creating swales and a fledgling wetlands area as part of the landscape. She also uses her greywater, distributed through pumice wicks and well water. Raised beds and a circular chicken yard (She says chickens don’t like corners) add to the beauty of the entire “ecosystem” she has created…an oasis in the desert.

Christina and Taylor Selby
Christina and Taylor Selby founded Earth Care in 2001 and have been working to educate and empower young people to create healthy, just and sustainable communities. Taylor now works for Positive Energy Solar, and together they continue to extended that original desire into their home, garden and surrounding land. They have a neighborhood garden, their own kitchen garden, a berry and fruit forest, a chicken enclosure and their young son also has his own raised beds in the back yard. The surrounding land is being sculpted with swales and pumice wicks and covered with mulch to retain rainwater to sustain their native and xeric plantings. They have photovoltaic solar panels in the back yard to produce their energy and solar hot water panels on their roof. Greywater and rainwater (collected and dispersed from their 1800 gallon above ground cistern) supplemented by well water nourish all this plant life – via carefully orchestrated drip irrigation. With their family and neighbors, implementing many permaculture principles, they are developing a nurturing and sustainable lifestyle.

Erin English & Andrea Cermanski
Also featured as a residence on a modern homes tour, their dwelling is perfectly woven into a sustainable landscape and productive garden.  Many elements of this design create closure to what would otherwise be lost opportunities and these include: an outdoor shower waters the garden, chickens are fed vegetative scraps, the homes exterior walls articulate sophisticated outdoor living spaces, an 800-gallon cistern collects stormwater and a pumice wick waters fruit trees with roof runoff.  This garden includes several productive raised-beds, a greenhouse, and a sensible group of edible and ornamental plantings, which are all expertly composed within the immediate context of the house, the neighborhood, and the overall landscape of the Santa Fe River’s north bank.  Professionally, English is an engineer specializing in water quality and erosion control and Cermanski is an Art and English teacher and painter.

Seed Starting Class March 3

Garden Seed Starting Class
Saturday, March 3
10:00 to 11:30 am

Presented by Home Grown New Mexico and the Railyard Stewards

DESCRIPTION AND BIO:
Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class on how to start seeds for your garden. Jannine has extensive experience in growing vegetables organically on her 2000 square foot garden using all organic methods. Follow her blog. COST: Suggested $10 donation

LOCATION: This event will take place in the Railyard Park.  Meet at the community room behind SITE Santa Fe, off of Paseo de Peralta.  It is a metal corrugated building.

QUESTIONS: Contact homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or call 473-1403.  Visit homegrownnewmexico.org for details of other community homesteading classes this year.

Potluck January 31st

The Santa Fe Complex and Home Grown New Mexico continue the Community Homesteading Potluck Gatherings at the Santa Fe Complex.

Next event is Tuesday, January 31st at 6:30pm
NEW LOCATION: The Santa Fe Complex moved to 1807 Second Street, Suite 107. Turn in at Backroad Pizza and it is in the middle section of buildings.

• Speaker: Want local vegetables & fruit in the winter? Meet the CSA Manager Dena Aquilina from Beneficial Farms CSA and ask questions about the food, gardening support and recipe blog. Join Beneficial Farms CSA and have a weekly pickup at convenient locations in Santa Fe and ABQ.

• Discussion: Are you ready to plan your garden? Doug Conwell will lead a discussion about the planning process for your spring garden and questions about your winter gardens. We will have some seed catalogs to review during the potluck. Look for our early seed exchange at the February 28 potluck.

The goal of our potlucks is to bring individuals together and organically create an environment of education between the different levels of experience. Come if you are a novice, an expert, or anything in between in the topics of gardening, beekeeping, backyard chicken coops and urban farming.

Bring a dish to share with the group. We want this to be a zero waste event so please bring a plate, silverware and a cup.  You could even bring your dish or drink in a reusable container.

Home Grown New Mexico hopes to continue to communicate these events and add more speakers and activities to our calendar. To facilitate this there is a suggested donation of $5 or more. The Santa Fe Complex moved to 1807 Second Street, Suite 107. Turn in at Backroad Pizza and it is in the middle section of buildings and visit http://sfcomplex.org/ for more detailed directions. For more information on the potlucks, email homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or call 473-1403.

Potluck Nov 29th- NEW LOCATION

Join us Tuesday, November 29th at 6:30 for the last potluck of the year.

NEW LOCATION: The Santa Fe Complex moved to 1807 Second Street, Suite 107. Turn in at Backroad Pizza and it is in the middle section of buildings.

There will not be a December potluck.  Join us in 2012 on the last Tuesday of each month and watch our website for details.

• Author Maggie Macnab will discuss her new book “Design By Nature” with permaculture concepts to describe design.  Buy the book and have it signed at the event for the discounted price of $35. $5 of each book sold will go towards supporting Home Grown New Mexico and Beneficial Farms.
• Feedback on the potlucks, education events and garden tour.  We will have a discussion to help us plan for 2012. You can also email me at homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or call 473-1403.  We want to hear from you!

The goal of our potlucks is to bring individuals together and organically create an environment of education between the different levels of experience. Come if you are a novice, an expert, or anything in between in the topics of gardening, beekeeping, backyard chicken coops and urban farming.

Bring a dish to share with the group. We want this to be a zero waste event so please bring a plate, silverware and a cup.  You could even bring your dish or drink in a reusable container.

Home Grown New Mexico hopes to continue to communicate these events and add more speakers and activities to our calendar. To facilitate this there is a suggested donation of $5 or more. The Santa Fe Complex moved to 1807 Second Street, Suite 107. Turn in at Backroad Pizza and it is in the middle section of buildings and visit http://sfcomplex.org/ for more detailed directions. For more information on the potlucks, email homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or call 473-1403.

Photos of the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour

We enjoyed seeing all of you at the Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour.  Thank you to everyone that took photos and sent them to us.  We will be posting photos of each location so that you can remember some of the beautiful plants, lively animals and great ideas from the six homeowners.  If you have more photos, please send to homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or call 473-1403.  These are photos of Don Emery’s gardens by Sky Bat Studios.  More will be posted next week in our Kitchen Garden & Coop Menu.

Entering Don’s garden at the Welcome Table

Cheerful volunteers from the parking area to the welcome table and the garden

Raised beds, cold frames, pots and planting areas are all used in this garden

Guests enjoyed the different areas of herbs, vegetables and fruit trees

Temperature controlled cold frames extend the season of greens and vegetables

Guests looked at the fresh greens

Swiss chard!

Thank you for joining us

Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour

Don’t miss the First Annual 2011 Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour on Sunday, July 24 from 9am – 2pm.  This is a fundraising event for Home Grown New Mexico and Edible Santa Fe.  Visit six gardens and talk with the homeowners. Other features of the tour include:

• Vegetable Gardens & Fruit Trees
• Backyard Chicken Coops
• Examples of Fine Potagers
• Cold Frames & Container Gardens
• Master Gardeners

The location addresses are listed below with a brief description. A map will be posted by Sunday, July 17.  Visit gardens in any order as tickets will be accepted at all locations.  Tickets will be $35 on the day of the tour at any tour location (cash or credit card), but buy them now online with the discount code CLUCK.  All discounted tickets must be purchased online by Saturday, July 23rd.

Tickets are sold online at Brown Paper Tickets
click here to buy tickets

Questions: homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com or 473-1403

SIX SPECTACULAR LOCATIONS

1- DON EMERY 930 Paseo de Andres
Don Emery is one of our faithful board members at Home Grown New Mexico. Don’s love of culinary gardening grew from his passion for cooking. What began with a couple raised beds seven years ago, developed like a finely tuned recipe. Today he has fourteen beautiful home-made specimens complete with hoops and covers, amidst numerous containers filled with happy veggies . His temperature controlled cold frame makes even the most seasoned gardener green with envy. Don also constructed a lovely potting shed, planted fruit trees, installed perennial edible beds and grows several potato varieties in straw. His attention to detail makes Don’s gardens are as aesthetically beautiful as they are utilitarian. A ‘not to be missed’ on the tour.

2- SONDRA GOODWIN 1615 Cerro Gordo Road
Why did Sondra Goodwin buy half an acre of concrete, asphalt and Astroturf six years ago? Because, she had a vision of Eden concealed beneath it. It took three years to remove the last of the concrete exposing hardpan dirt- like a rock. After another three years of digging, amending, and bed building, it is a truly spectacular potager teaming with life and beauty. Sondra grows most of her own food, through all four seasons. Surplus is shared or stored in her root cellar for winter enjoyment. Aside from traditional heirloom cultivars, she enjoys growing unusual varieties like tobacco, Campanula ranunculus, molokhia, shiso, water spinach, Japanese mugwort, and long snake dancer melon. Sondra preserves sauerkraut, jams, salsas, pickles and honey from her bees, and tends a small covey of quail and several ducks.

3- NATE DOWNEY and MELISSA MCDONALD 1104 Don Gaspar Ave.
Nate and Melissa’s property offers a double meal deal. They are co-owners of Santa Fe Permaculture, an ecological landscape-design, consultation, and installation company. Their spacious yard is truly an example of their success.  Perennial vegetables and herbs are artfully tucked amidst flowers, berry bushes and stone fruit trees. Three 4’x8’covered, raised beds feature the annual veggies; a bean tee-pee entertains the kids, while their five hens occupy a passive solar, multi-room coop. Nate and Melissa have a water catchment and cistern system capable of collecting 22,000 gallons of rainwater in an average year!  The tour doubles as a book signing. Nate will be on hand to sign his new book, Harvest the Rain.

4- BOB ZIMMERMAN and JERRY SILVERSTEIN 2233 Calle Cacique
Bob, a life-long gardener and retired biology teacher moved to their present home three years ago with his partner Jerry and began transforming the property with finesse. A quaint picket fence now encloses two raised veggie beds and the hen house- a not to miss, luxury, two-story adobe suite with clearstory windows, vegas, beams, canales, flagstone portal, and run. Masonry beds overflow with ripening harvest. Grapevines, raspberries, gold and red currents are tucked and trellised. Potted tomato plants line the walk, while two enormous Bing cherry trees shade the patio. They have two hand-painted topbar hives and a specifically designed flower garden that provides pollinator habitat. All this and much more to enjoy and inspire!

5- THE BAKER FAMILY 2053 Camino Lado
The Bakers live on a small residential lot in central Santa Fe, and every square inch of which is packed to its potential, producing an abundance of fresh fruit, flowers, veggies, berries, and nuts. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Reese owns and manages The Rain Catcher Inc, a full service design/build landscaping company. Rainwater is collected in above and below ground storage tanks and used for irrigation. Gray water from the house is channeled to fruit trees and a constructed wetlands that filters the water and fills a small pond. They are developing a ‘food forest’ landscape where most of their annual vegetable garden is intermixed with perennials.  All this, plus bees and five happy hens in a homemade coop of recycled materials. A great example of what one can accomplish in a small, city lot!

6- STEVE and MORIA PETERS 1706 W. Alameda St.
The Peters are life-long horticultural experts, plant professionals and gardening educators. They double as residents and caretakers of the Tres Placidas del Rio Co-housing Community garden. Nestled along the Santa Fe River and tucked beneath a canopy of elms and cottonwoods, the gardens are nearly a ¼ acre of cultivated land, teaming with life. Aside from the cornucopia of vegetable crops, perennial beds overflow with herbs, raspberries and asparagus.  Sable Saanen dairy goats and chickens occupy the home-made straw bale barn, complete with it’s own water harvesting system. Animal bedding and kitchen waste feed impressive compost piles that feed the soil, which feed the edibles – that in turn, is gratefully received by all community members.  A wonderful model of community gardening!

Organic Pest and Disease Control Class- June 25

Organic Pest and Disease Control
Saturday, June 25
9:00 to 10:30 am

Presented with the Milagro Community Garden

DESCRIPTION AND BIO:
Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class on what organic controls to use for pests and diseases for vegetable crops. Jannine has extensive experience in growing vegetables organically on her 2000 square foot garden using all organic methods. She will provide information and handouts on how to control: aphids, squash bugs, squash vine borers, tomato hornworms, leafhoppers, cabbage loopers, grasshoppers and many other bugs that harm or eat our crops. She will talk about tomato diseases and how to trouble shoot them. She will also talk about many of the fungal diseases that attack tomatoes and curcubits (squash, cucumbers) and what organic methods to use to help these crops. Come learn how to grow vegetables using organic methods.

Click here to follow her blog

COST: Suggested $5 donation to community garden

LOCATION: Milagro Community Garden on Legacy and Rodeo Road.  Turn on Legacy and the parking lot is on the right, behind the Lutheran Church of the Servant.  Call 473-1403 or email homegrownnewmexico@gmail.com for questions.

Herb Walk in the Railyard Park

Don’t miss this education class from Home Grown New Mexico next weekend.

Herb Walk in the Railyard
Saturday, May 21
10:00 to 11:30 am

Presented with the Railyard Stewards

DESCRIPTION
Edible, useful, and medicinal plants can be found everywhere, all the way from the high mountains to a park in the middle of the city. Come spend some enjoyable time exploring the plants in the Railyard Park. You may be surprised at what you find! With a lively and interactive teaching style, Carole will share her knowledge about the properties of the plants in our midst, including instructions about harvesting and drying plants, making herb teas, and using plants for first aid.

COST
Suggested donation of $10

LOCATION
This event will take place in the Railyard Park.  Meet at the community room near the parking lot behind SITE Santa Fe, off of Paseo de Peralta.  It is a metal corrugated building.

INSTRUCTOR BIO
Carole Tashel, an avid student of the school of nature for 30 years, is still moved by the beauty, effectiveness, and revolutionary aspects of natural healing. She is an herbalist and gardener, and author of Gardening the Southwest: How to care for your land while growing food, beauty and medicine (1999).

Preparing Your Soil

Improving garden soil is a continual process.  Add organic material every year to make the clay soil of New Mexico better for the plant roots.  Healthy soil will help healthier plants grow.  If you are starting a garden this year, you have a few weeks to prepare your soil.  If you have been gardening for years in the same area, you can still continue to add organic material to have better soil properties this year.

One of the goals in growing your own organic food is to save money.  If you go to the garden stores and nurseries there are lots of expensive organic products that say they will improve your soil.  They have useful ingredients and organic material that will improve your soil. Can you use materials that are less expensive?  Many New Mexico farmers and gardeners use two things, aged manure and compost.  These can be picked up or created for a lower cost than buying products.  Plan to start your manure and compost projects this season to have them ready for next spring.  Here are a few tips for locating composted or aged manure and compost for this season.

Manure

In New Mexico, horse manure seems to be prevalent and it used in all types of gardens.  It should be composted and broken down before it is placed in the soil.

Get manure from a place with horses instead of buying it at the store.  ”Mother Earth News” has reported manure burning plants from horse areas that use an herbicide called aminopyralid.  Ask your gardener friends where they get manure or drive around horse properties and see if they use organic practices in their gardening and will let you pick up some manure.  It should be aged so that it is already broken down and can be worked into the soil.  This will also decompose any deworming medicine that could kill earthworms in your planting beds.  Placing fresh manure in the soil will rob it of nitrogen as the manure breaks down and this will rob it from your plants, causing them to grow more slowly.

If you can find aged (6 months or older) manure now, add about a one inch depth and work in with a garden fork.  If you can not locate now, make sure that you add compost before planting your garden.  You can add fresher manure in October and let it decompose in your garden over the winter.

Compost

Compost is an amazing organic material that basically is created from  a lot of your trash.  If you need to buy some in Santa Fe, Sam McCarthy at Payne’s Soil Yard has great expertise and sells a premium compost in bulk.  I have also purchased organic compost with chicken manure at Santa Fe Greenhouse.

There are all types of methods for figuring out how much compost you need.  Most commonly known is 3 to 4 inches over the garden and then mixed in with a garden fork.  Don’t plant straight into compost as it will hold more water than soil and will inhibit plant growth.  Talk with the place that you purchase the compost for their recommendation.  You should also make sure that you purchase organic compost.  It will be labeled on the bag.  If it is not labeled, then I would not purchase it as some compost materials could have been grown with chemicals that could enter your garden.