My first tomato of the year!

Hi there,
I have gotten my first ripe tomato of the season today! Unfortunately for you there are no photos...it didn't last very long among ravenous tomato munchers. I should have one more ripe tomato tomorrow and I can snap a photo of the plants then...as long as I don't munch it first.

On a growing method note: I leave most of the weeds that grow under and around my garden (with the exception of anything that is perennial, has spines, or that may become a problem in the future). The plants seem to like the extra drought protection that the layer of live mulch provides. I do not hesitate to pluck weeds if they do seem to be stealing too much water or space from my planted babies. I also tend to have grass growing in my garden beds, despite my efforts to keep it out--it appears that the garden is the only place that grass likes growing here in the desert, but I am none to fond of how well it can choke out other plants.

In other news, the potatoes are almost ready for early picking--they have flowers, but are still green on the plants and have not started to die back. This would be the perfect time for fingerling potatoes, if my family liked/needed them. Instead, I will be waiting until the taters are a little more mature before going after them. Besides, I have local potatoes to last me for the rest of the week at least!

Other than that, the zucchini are growing like mad and I have two large ripe green zuchs in my fridge, and the cucumbers are flowering, but no fruit as of yet. I have a large pumpkin sitting in the garden, as well as some baby watermelons.  The corn, as expected, grew vertically very well, but did not produce much along the lines of edible cobs thanks to heat, wind, and moths. I did manage to get one two foot long corn cob that had some kernels that were tasty. (Yes. 2 feet long. Too bad it never developed into a real ear--I still have hopes for the later-planted corn to maybe get one or two edible ears). I am hoping that the extreme dry and wind we have been having will not affect the garden too much!

Now I think that I will go outside and dance in the rain before it passes (or turns into hail... ug...that four letter word would send me to tears right now)!

Garlic Harvest Time!

Well, I just came back from a two week medical emergency trip (everything is okay now) and had good friends taking care of the garden. Everything in the garden was quite happy and growing away. Before I left the rest of the garlic was almost ready to pick, but not quite, so when I got back it was really ready to be plucked!

All told there are about 30 bulbs, including some that fell off of their stems, and one that I ...um...dug into. oops. I dug them up yesterday afternoon and let them sit on the ground overnight. They did get rained on a bit, but not enough to cause any problems. Today I cleaned them up and braided them. Cleaning just involved removing the clinging dirt and any loose skins, then tearing/cutting off the roots to prevent space for things to grow and moisture to collect.  Braiding is occasionally hard to start, but easy once you get going. One word of warning: it is easy to get garlic splinters if you are not careful when braiding--don't slide your hand down the stems and leaves if you can help it. Learn from my fail.

Anyway, here is a photo of the newly braided garlic!

And another one

From here they are going to be hung in my pantry to cure and be eaten.  I may mash up some with olive oil and some salt and keep it in the fridge as instant garlic, but I have to find motivation and time for that.  

One thing I did notice is that some of my garlic is already greenish blue. Apparently I have sulfur/copper enough to turn the skins green, but that will not affect the taste at all. This particular variety also has purple skins at times, so I am wondering if the blue/green tinge is related to that. 

Happy garlic munching!

Spring Garden, and..."What the heck!"

When I moved into my house last year I fell in love with the garden space it has, and the two big cottonwoods that give partial shade to some of the garden. (Though have been hating the pollen from those cottonwoods for the past two weeks)

There are five beds in my garden. Three of them have wonderful soil, one is okay clay/sand, and the final bed is pretty much clay concrete. Of the five beds, two are currently in use, one mid-way through tilling and already sprouting up taters, and one growing field peas (and weeds) to try and fix the poor clay soil that is there. The last bed is fallow at the moment and will become a summer/fall garden plot once I get the chance to plan it out. All of them are watered using drip hoses (ye olde basic black sponge hoses). The beds are just the right length to run a hose all around the edge of the bed and then up the middle.

Now, on to each bed in turn.

The first has:

• wintered garlic (a little over a foot tall now), 
• spinach (Bloomsdale Longstanding--just planted, and three plants overwintered) 
• sunflowers (Mongolian Giant)
• bush beans (I think they are Blue Lake, but I don't really remember)
• A few carrots (Nantes hold-overs from winter)
• Cucumbers (Lemon)

Adding to that list will be tomatoes (Cherokee Purple and Siberian), Peppers (California Wonder Bell and Big Jim), and some corn (saved from last year) to provide a little more shade. The transplants are only about three inches tall right now and are really fragile--I repotted them into bigger containers, but I want them more wind resistant (not to mention less likely to freeze) before I plant them outside. (Note that the hose is not in my standard configuration due to fail on my part)

The second bed as it stands right now has:

• Corn (Posole)
• Pole Beans (Rattlesnake Snap)
• Bush Beans (Blue lake I think)
• Sunflowers (Mongolian Giant)
• Beets (Bull's Blood--planted late, but we will see if they grow)
• Cucumber (Pickling)

I am not sure what I will plant in the small section between the beets and the peas, but I think there will be room for some melons or squash and still have room for the plants to sprawl. (On the note of watering, this bed you can see the end of the buried watering hose--that keeps the water from evaporating)

Bed number three: Po Ta Toes.

Last year I pretty much had to pick-axe my way through the dirt in the potato bed. After many hours of tilling, lots of adding straw, and more tilling, I planted basic Yukon Gold potatoes and kept them covered with straw as they grew. After a good crop last year, I decided that I would give the soil a year to rest--but nature has other ideas.

This morning I went out to till the ground out there and found quite a few potatoes that were sprouting and ready to start more taters. Not only that but the soil was no longer just hard-packed clay. Instead of the concrete-like substance from last year, I now have pretty darn good soil. Not great, but definitely more happy than I ever though that it would be. The potatoes, along with the straw, water, and worms seem to have done their jobs!  Anyway, I remembered a bag of organic potatoes that was trying to sprout in my pantry. Those little taters are now all cut up and drying out a bit before I plant them out with their kin in the tater plot sometime later today or tomorrow.

Here is a short rant on potatoes--seed potatoes are best, but organic works well too. Some people refuse to plant anything except seed potatoes due to risks of transferring diseases to new soils. I am a little hesitant to pay $15/lb plus shipping just to get $3 of potatoes at home. Instead, I go to either my local farmer's market and buy from the nice people there, or I pick up a big bag of organic taters from the supermarket. Neither of these are sprayed with any kind of anti-rooting hormones, and they have not had to be sprayed to within an inch of their lives to keep root rot out of them. Both grow incredibly well, with relatively low risk. If you positively want to be safe, go with the seed potatoes, otherwise organic works quite well.

Alrighty, rant finished. Back to the beds.

Bed four--that bastard clay square

 This bed has issues. It is square (not a problem), small (meh), being invaded by Trumpet Vine (I HATE that plant), and has about 100% hard-packed clay. Last year I planted viny things in it and the plants flourished. The soil did not. I even made sure to add in some compost and organic matter. No love. There just was not enough plant matter and deep roots to aerate the soil. While the plants grew very well, they also took out more nutrients from an already depleted soil. Dang.

Now I need to find a way to fix all the problems--and that involves good old rotting plant matter. I picked up some seed for Field Peas to try to get some Nitrogen back into the soil as well as to break of the clay.  Once the peas (or the weeds that are growing with them) are mature but not seeding, I will till all of the greenery into the soil and let it sit. Every few days I can spray it with water, and VOILA! there should be much better soil next year. Should. I hope. I doubt that I will plant anything there judging by the state of the soil right now, but I may end up with some melons there, since the plants really love that area.

Finally, bed five--all fallow

I am leaving this bed fallow for the first part of the season and plan on planting it later on with summer/fall goodies and letting one other bed have a break. Last year this bed had lots of beets and garlic, so it is not too taxed, but I still don't need quite that many plants to tend right now. 

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Now for a quick information session named "What is THAT?!"

 

So, what is this little cocoon of goodness that attached itself to my vines?

The answer: A Praying Mantis Cocoon

I absolutely was amazed at how many of these little cocoons were all over my front porch area. I love praying mantises because they eat almost every bad bug in my garden that I can think of, and leave the good bugs (like ladybugs) alone.  If you see any of these hard little brown things hanging from your siding, overhang, plants, etc, make sure to leave them alone. Eventually these will turn into pest-eating machines! (Until then they sorta look like turds...)

Gardening Greens--in Mid-November

Last night it got down to 24degrees (F), but my lettuce, carrots, beets, and spinach all survived happily. Why? The miracle of row covers. In this case, I used a simple doubled over sheet of heavy black plastic.  While I don't normally suggest plastic for row covers as it can actually backfire (the plastic doesn't breathe), I couldn't find my normal heavy row cover last night.

As some background, I planted most of the fall/winter garden in mid-September by just sprinkling the seeds over the row. I was too lazy to try rows again, and my seeds were old, so I knew that many would not sprout at all. The big reason that I even planted was that I had an open garden bed, and still had time before snow and freezing settled in.

Now that it is mid-November in the middle of New Mexico we are getting temperatures that make any leafy plant want to curl up and freeze. I have been lucky so far--low temperatures normally above 28F, which means I don't need to cover the plants. Yesterday though, I checked my trusty NOAA site and saw that the temperature was not going to be that warm. In fact it was supposed to be down to 24F and windy--bad news for uncovered plants.  Right after I saw that I hopped outside and scrambled to cover up the row. This morning when I uncovered the row, the plants were wet, and slightly squished, but very happy and not frozen.

So here is my recommendation for anyone trying to extend their garden season:

• Check the forecasted low--if it is going to be below around 27-28, your leafy greens may suffer
• Cover your garden plants before dark if possible--it holds the heat better--but any time is better than none
• Covering options:
• old sheets
• towels
• light blankets
• plastic sheeting
• for long term storage: thick layers of straw (it will cause seeds to sprout later)
• purchased row covers
• milk jugs with the bottom cut off (keep the lid)
• glass jars
• pretty much anything that you can put on before it gets cold and take off once it warms up

• Make sure to take off the covering in the morning (if it is going to be above freezing)
• if you have cloth covers it should be fine to leave it on a few days
• plastic should NOT be left on any longer than necessary because the plants will sweat, and could get too hot--or that extra plant sweat could actually cause worse freezing
• Water deep during the day before especially cold nights
• the water helps to hold heat from during the day
• If the plants look shriveled and sad in the morning, don't pick the shriveled leaves
• either they will bounce back and rehydrate, or
• they will act as a mini blanket for the plant next time it gets cold

How long till my garden dies? Who knows. High desert winter and fall gardening is never a sure thing. I don't think that I can keep my garden alive outside if it drops consistently below 20F, or if it stops warming up during the day (probably early to mid December if I am lucky).  On the other hand, there is always the option of rescuing some of the plants and bringing them inside to grow over the winter and ignore the frigid temperatures.

Growing in the high desert means that there is a long growing season, but finicky growing conditions. Temperatures swing wildly every day--24F low followed by a high of 62F is what today's forecast was, tonight's low will be 36F with no need to cover the garden. Aah the fun of gardening in the middle of nowhere!

How do you extend your garden or  do you? Do you live somewhere where you can plant a fall garden--or do you hibernate and move inside for fall and winter?

Spring Garden is In!

Of course, when moving into a new home the first thing that NEEDS to be done is to put in the garden... well...maybe not need per say, but it definitely is more fun than packing and cleaning houses!  Today was my day to put in my spring garden in the nice pre-made beds.

Two of the beds were put to sleep for the winter with compost and covered, the other three needed some love in the form of weeding and tilling.  While I am far from finished planting (since I still have three beds that I can fill), today was very productive and I am no longer behind schedule.

"Behind schedule? In March? How can that happen"

Here in the high desert, spring is the very short time between February freezes (mid teens at night, 40's in day) and May sweltering (60's at night, 90's in day). It is windy, moody, and in general a wonderful time of year for being outside without a long sleeved shirt, but not quite ready for shorts--except for that whole wind and moodiness I mentioned. For example: In the past two days it drizzled, then snowed, then just went to 40mph winds--all over the lunch hour. Today it was in the low 70's, sunshine, just enough breeze to be comfortable--in short it was beautiful.  Welcome to spring in Central New Mexico.

Now that you know what spring really means here, you can probably guess that most "spring" plants don't have long to live before being blown away and dried out by the wind, or getting too hot and melting in the sunshine... unless they freeze to death...  I tend to stick with organically grown seeds when I can get them, and I attempt (though am rarely successful) at finding heirloom or non-hybrid varieties of plants. This is the middle of nowhere, and shipping can be painful for a small packet of seeds.

The garden so far has my transplanted perennials: rhubarb and artichoke, along with a chard plant that refuses to die. To the right of the photo are a bunch of snow peas (the trellis is just visible), some radishes, and the artichoke.  This little bed is only about 2 feet by six feet, but is great for these babies.

The next bed is much bigger, about 10 feet by 4 feet.

This bed was all ready to go and only needed a little tilling to get it ready for planting. It now has garlic (planted at the other house last November), spinach, lettuce, onions, scallions, beets, and radishes. I was given the onions, and leafy greens by a friend who bought too many. I babied them along till I could plant them outside. Here is a closer look at the greener side of the beds (before putting in a soaker hose)

Those babies look pretty sad now, but I think most of them will perk up

I planted most of the seeds pretty close to each other since I am not too worried about pests or having to walk between rows.  I also installed a soaker hose in the large bed so that I do not have to water from above...and can be lazy.  

I do have two more large beds to plant... something in. Carrots, peas maybe, who knows what else. I may leave them alone and just have them ready to plant the summer vines later on in the season.  In addition to those two, there is a 4 foot diameter stock pond (now filled with soil) that will be the potato and marigold place. Why marigolds? I hear that they keep away some of the pests that like to eat my taters!  I even have a bag of organic potatoes that are desperately trying to sprout under my countertop, so I figured that I could put them to good use. That will have to wait for another day, as it was plenty of work to get the garden mostly up and running.

 The two beds that still needs some loving

The best part of this garden is it is an excuse to play in the dirt outside. I remember helping (or hindering) my Great Grandfather in his huge garden long ago, now I am putting some of his knowledge to work for my own garden. (Memories of him in his garden always hit me whenever I am in a shady garden with trellises--all good memories. Tasty too!)  Maybe if he and green thumb is watching he can keep an eye on me and my garden--probably shaking his head and saying "no no, you're doin' it wrong"... but a funny thought anyway.

Are you planning on gardening this year? What are you planning on planting--or are you somewhere that you have already planted?

Garlic. Winter. And Gifts.

The first time it froze hard I dutifully covered up my little garden in an effort to keep the poor garlic babies from freezing. Bah, they didn't even wilt.

Next time I decided to let them live or die without a cover. Well, they did not die. In fact, they are quite happy and thriving. If I have to pluck scapes (the flower tops) off of the tops before we even hit February I will be really confused. As it is I am hoping that the bottoms are happily growing away since the tops have stopped getting any bigger, just staying green.

Also got two new cookbooks for Christmas:
Gluten-Free Baking with The Culinary Institute of America: 150 Flavorful Recipes from the World's Premier Culinary College by Richard J. Coppedge Jr. 

 And:
More from the Gluten-Free Gourmet: Delicious Dining Without Wheat by Bette Hagman

I have had a chance to look through both of the books and so far I like both of them. The Culinary Institute of America book is nice and well tested BUT there are five different flour mixes and a few of them use soy flour which I abhor. On the other hand, substituting the soy for sorghum so far has worked wonderfully so I hope to continue to have promising results! There is even a recipe for GF puff pastry!



The Bette Hagman sequel is also great (just like her first book which I also like) and has many more involved recipes that I would love to try.  In this version there are lots of dinner recipes as well which have promise. I plan to try the recipe for cream of X soup in some of my more traditional casseroles (like tuna noodle!) which always have the cream of mushroom-chicken-tomato-etc condensed soup which are full of wheat.


Another gift from the holidays was Ree the Pioneer Woman's Cookbook (just like most of the bloggers that I know) which I have been drooling over and awaiting the day it would come to me! "The Pioneer Woman Cooks" is a beautiful book.

It is so pretty... and even signed just for me (arranged for me by dear friend)... I almost hate to bring it near my kitchen to start de-glutenizing the recipes and getting chocolate smudges and flours all over it... almost. But not enough to ignore the fact that I love that woman's cookin' and want to dig in as soon as possible to work on them.



And now I need to further delve into my new gifts and find out what is going to be in my kitchen later today, tomorrow, or as soon as I can find some spare sanity!

frost

Of course, the day that I decide to plant the darn garlic, the other plants decide to freeze. Not hard, mind you, but definitely enough to kill off most of the leaves on the watermelon and some on the zucchini. Oh well, not like the watermelon had any melons on it after the darn squirrel took off with my last softball sized babymelon. The zucchini babies survived, so that made me happy, and it gave me the extra boost (a.k.a. kick in the pants) to put down a layer of compost to protect my freshly planted garlic.

Dang moody weather.

Garlicy Goodness

Now that the weather is consistently below 90 (and still slightly above freezing at night) I decided that it was time for the winter crop. After a quick batch of instant pickles that I whipped up with onions, bell pepper, and lots of garlic, I decided to use the remaining three heads of garlic to plant for summer harvest. For the record I planted them about 3 inches deep--about an inch deeper than some instructions say to better protect from freezing--and about 4-5 inches apart. The garlic cloves are sandwiched between the perennials (chard, rhubarb, and an artichoke) and some leftover baby beets. At least with it sandwiched, even if the beets do nothing I at least know where I planted the darn garlic. So there.

On that note, let me say that this is my first time attempting garlic in New Mexico. My sources for gardening are a mix of Arizona desert books (warmer and much lower altitude than here), and one minor source that is outdated but more suited to the altitude and NM weather. I hear that growing garlic works pretty well here assuming that the weather behaves, the water is right, and that the soil is right.

That is a lot of assuming. But it is worth a shot since I was able to find nice healthy heads of garlic for cheap. Whether or not they will grow? I have no idea. I don't care. It is an experiment that should work at least a little and it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Besides, I see no reason for my nice new garden bed to sit empty and alone over what winter we have.

As a note, the cloves should be a random Silverskin Garlic variety as that is what I could lay my hands on at the grocery store and looked healthy. Since they were still firm and looked nice I went with the basic bulk garlic in hopes that it was treated with less anti-sprouting chemicals. I like my food to have as few chemicals as possible thanks... though sometimes I do feel the urge to kill every last sticker bush in sight.

I am never really sure how well my garden is going to work, but I am always willing to shell out a few bucks to try a new plant. (Especially at less than a buck for the three heads)

Yesterday we went around fixing fence to make it able to hold dogs in; it held, but the dirt underneath it is too soft. Today was very sad when my roomie woke up to find our little girlie Dax missing. She got a call about an hour later from animal control saying that they found her, shot by one of the chicken farmers. She was not a 500 feet from the house and was on public property. It made me really mad, but I realize that the farmer is just protecting his flock, but a simple look at her tags (which is how animal control found us) would have gotten her home safely.

That meant that we have been fixing fence, reinforcing it with long logs to keep the dirt and fencing down, and posting signs around the property letting people know to actually shut the gate and let us know BEFORE they come in the yard. I miss our old pup (she was nearly 10) and now she is buried out in the back yard under a new tree. My roomie is taking it much harder, since she has been with the dog since they both were little. It is very sad to lose Dax, but at least I know that she died quickly and now we know that we REALLY need to keep the boys locked in tight. They both managed to get out this morning, but they are both home bodies and did not roam. Now there is no easy way of escape, short of someone opening the gate.

I may have blisters from shoveling and fencing, but it is worth it to prevent what happened to our little Dax from happening to the other two. Now it is a game of waiting for Bear to find a new spot to dig, scold him, and shore up the area.

(And as a side note I also got a lot of the thistle and sticker plants killed while taking out my frustrations on vile plants instead of people... it served to add to the blister but helped me mentally. Now my hands are torn up, and I am tired, but in a good way after a rather stressful morning.)

I guess that I never will be able to get that new photo of Dax. I will find one somewhere. I will.
****EDIT****

And I did:

Dax, born 1998, Died June 26th, 2009