Kitchen Gardeners of New Mexico

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8 Comments

Comment by Janet Yagoda on July 11, 2008 at 8:26am

Just found the New Mexico page. Maybe there ae enough of us to do a small KGI -day program or at least get together for a "home grown" meal.
Janet

Comment by Heather Wood on June 16, 2008 at 9:58am

Delighted to have you, Susan. I'm in Albuquerque. Please have a look at my website, www.localfoodalbuquerque.com, and when you have time it would be great if you'd post something about your garden and garden ambitions. Thanks, Heather

Comment by Susan Smith on June 15, 2008 at 10:02pm

I just discovered this site -- and Thanks! to Heather for starting it. I've just retired from the sc hools and am interested in promoting kitchen gardens in Albuquerque and the East mountains. I'm taking a community gardening class at CNM and we're talking about how to promote community or individual gardens there as well. Is anyone on this site in Albuquerque?

-- Susan

Comment by Heather Wood on May 31, 2008 at 12:57pm

Is anyone growing lima beans? I would tkink that our climate would be very good for them, but I have poor germination and then considerable attrition among the young plants, which doesn't occur with the other beans that I grow. I keep trying my old favorite "King of the Garden" pole limas, and may need to switch varieties.

Comment by Cyndy on May 28, 2008 at 3:11pm

I live in Las Cruces. I grew up here and have lived in many states, but recently moved back to care for my mom who has Alzheimers. Resources for this area have been very skimpy. I have visited Darrol's page before and was extremely happy to find it then, but was very happy to see his recent updates including varieties for the area and the links to the NMSU list of varieties and planting times. I had been unable to find much at all online specific to this area when I was first moved back here, so I have more or less gardened intuitively, making many mistakes along the way and used Phoenix resources as a rough guide, making guesses along the way. I couldn't even find a last frost date, so I used El Paso's March 26, which seemed to work ok this year.

Last year I attempted only some tomatoes and chiles. The tomatoes bombed, though I did have a decent patio variety overwinter inside as well as one chile that overwintered but produced very little. Lots of luck with basil inside during the winter.

This year, much better luck, so far. Luck being directly related to having 10 yards of compost delivered and utilizing a lot of containers.

This past week I harvested one small head of broccoli, container grown, with a few more on the way, some tiny shallots planted inground from seed, some small carrots, radishes, lettuce, inground is still producing (from a mesclun mix) and I have artichoke about ready. One artichoke was bought as a plant, (the one producing) and I have two more planted from seed in a container that I'm sure will need to be planted in ground this fall because I doubt it will survive the container during the winter. I've picked a handful of strawberries from 4 plants I planted last year and the few I planted this year are looking good despite being planted beneath the shade of a desert willow. Garlic, lots of garlic drying at the moment, probably planted too close together because they are smaller than they should have been.

I expect to get a decent haul of tomatoes until the really hot nights set in.
I have Chadwick cherries, Brandywine, and a Heirloom Mix.
Some chiles have set fruit and I'm setting some more seedlings out this week. I have Espanola, Barker, and Sandia, plus a California wonder bell mix. The bells haven't been doing much except surviving.

Potatoes look great, but I know not to expect much. Last year I found a few marble sized potatoes from plants my dad had planted. This year is an experiment. Hilling with straw.

Cantaloupe, watermelon and honeydew in containers as well as a few inground that are being chomped completely by some critter.

Tepary beans and Blue Lake seemed to have some issues with germination, but I have a few.
We'll see.
I have one makeshift rainbarrel with two others waiting for me to finish, once I figure out what tools I need, but no rain.
It's all a huge, but fun experiment at this point.

Comment by Heather Wood on May 24, 2008 at 11:40am

I recommend that everyone have a look at Darrol's website, for the paintings as well as the garden. It seems that among us we represent quite a range of microclimates, and I'm very curious about what the rest of you are harvesting right now. I'm loaded wih greens and herbs here in Albuquerque, but no root crops yet except radishes, and the warm-weather stuff is still small (although I did note that one ambitious tomato had set some green fruit while lss than a foot high.) I got a lovely soaking rain yesterday, finally, and hope everyone else had the same luck. I've just put in some rainbarrels within the last six months; is anyone else using them?

Comment by Darrol Shillingburg on May 23, 2008 at 11:29pm

I garden in Las Cruces. This year I expanded the food growing area from about 1,400 sq ft up to 2,000 sq ft. Ah the benefits of retirement! Now if I could just get some rainfall. I'm an extension Master Gardener and do some writing about growing food and stuff. There's more about the garden than anyone could use on my website. www.darrolshillingburg.com

Comment by erin*e on May 23, 2008 at 11:08am

Thanks for initiating...
I garden a small patch on the western end of Santa Fe, near the SF river.