An idea germinates at RGB...

This past week anther order came in from Native Seeds. Our good friend Matt, aka The Lenger suggested that we consider growing more blue corn because blue corn, when distilled down makes good whiskey! Not that anybody we knows makes or distills whiskey around here... wink, wink! So we ordered some more and then it occurred to us that IF we ever had whiskey made from blue corn that we grew... how cool would it be to sip on that whiskey whilst smoking a cigar made from tobacco that we grew!!! And so we ordered up some more tobacco that can be used as a wrapper for the other tobacco that we are growing... unfortunately, making whiskey and aging tobacco takes time so neither one would be ready in time for The Lengerfest, which is a celebration of the harvest and the good things in life! So I thought...hmm... what could we do... we need to sip that whiskey - if it ever gets made- and smoke those cigars... so why not have another festival! We could have a 'Spring Fling'... invite people over to help get the garden ready for planting and/or start planting and then finish over the day with some RGB grown whiskey and tobacco! So the order was placed and not only did we get the blue corn and tobacco we also recieved some Hopi Branching Sunflowers (to feed to the birds this winter) and some Acoma Rattle gourds that we can use... either as something practical or as a source for craft projects. We are still coming up with the details for our spring planting festival... If you have any ideas be sure to drop us an e-mail!

Progress Report

Things were sprouting up all over the place here at Rancho Gringos Blancos this week... The broccoli finally came up as did the nicotiana and the Jet Black hollyhock. I went down to our local nursery, Christopher's Gardens to pick up some more supplies to transplant the seedlings up... I picked up more trays and more peat pots... plus I peaked into some of the greenhouses and bought some tomato starts: Quick Pick, Celebrity and Nick's favorite, Champion! Nick is the nursery foreman and quite a funny character. He's from Colorado so had lots of experience growing things in higher elevation with shorter growing seasons. Anyway, a couple of lavender starts and a six pack of echinacea jumped onto my cart before I managed to check out! Christopher's is a great place they have the most knowledgeable staff around! Plus the owners are parents of one of my students.

Also with everything growing and some seeds getting started as we creep closer to that all important "frost free" date, things have gotten a bit cramped so it was back to the drawing board for our seedling start area. Everything was getting spread out all over the kitchen table, so I moved everything to "inglenook." Adam and I had went dumpster diving this past week and at Home Depot in their HUGE roll off dumpster, we managed to procure some 2x4 and 2x6 scraps plus... huge wire shelves! They a solid, 52 inches long by 32 inches wide so they will hold more than 4 flats! Anyway, next to the wood burning stove I built a bench out of the scrap lumber and topped it off with a wire shelf. Then we made another trip to Home Depot to purchase some more lights after those were hung, I organized the inglenook into the "garden nook" and we have plenty of room... at lest for the time being! While at Home Depot some Russian sage jumped into shopping cart so I brought them home too! Our garden entrance is going to look really nice!!!

With everything organized and in it's proper place, I am going to be working outside today and finish building that elusive garden gate!! Not to mention some more transplanting!

Yes, I did it...

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day here in the White Mountains... sunny but cold! I didn't feel much like working outside yesterday because of the cold, so after church I went to see if I could find a watering can and a decent sprayer/mister. All the nurseries in town were closed due to Easter, so I headed down the road to: Wal-Mart! Yes, I know I don't like to shop there... I would rather support our local businesses than give my money to the big box retail stores. But I was bored and thought I would have a look see... I ended up with an "inexpensive" sprayer and watering can... plastic and made in China! But as I was wandering through the garden center, I noticed a rack of seeds... I swooped in for a closer look and low and behold, I see some Burpee seeds. I checked out the tomatoes and picked up a package of Red Lighting... they looked tasty so I grabbed a pack of Bonanza Broccoli, Watermelon radishes and some lavender and echinacea. I went home and started plating some more seeds! I am waiting for next weekend to plant the radishes but I started the broccoli and the flower seeds indoors. I also shifted up some more starts from the peat pellets to small peat pots. It was a great day "working in the garden" considering I was warm and toasty! Things are looking rather good for our starts and I am excited for next weekend when we start to put plants into the ground! We are going to plant some strawberries today. They will be our first plants in the ground for our garden. Adam bought some strawberry roots from a fundraiser and we have been storing them in the fridge. He is anxious to get them in the ground. I figure it will be a week or so before the foliage pushes up and we are planting through a black mulch cover.

Eric is getting interested too! I figure it is only a matter of time before he gets out there too! We are "liberating" his roto-tilling today too! He loaned it to another friend, Michael, after his divorce. Mike left it at his house when he sold it and moved across the neighborhood. So now we have to go to the new owner's place and get the roto-tiller... hopefully we can get it without a hitch! I figure once we start using his roto-tiller on the garden he will become a bit more interested. Plus his new girlfriend really likes to garden so that should bring him around!

Well that is all for now... I have to go work on the gate before my doctor's appointment!

Go easy!

The planting continues!

So nice to have a four day weekend for Easter! The weather was perfect today - mid 70s! So I spent most of the day out in the garden! We already had today, Good Friday, off at school and we ended up with Monday off as well since we didn't use all of our snow days! Overall things went really well for our seedlings! Except we still don't have some tomatoes and some peppers... I realize they take longer to germinate... some other varieties of tomatoes have come up and some bell pepper are just starting... but this flat may have been too hot! I jury rigged a system to heat the flats and this one flat was closest to the heat source. I checked and they seem to still be coming along... just slower...

Luckily, the heat mat that I ordered came in so I was able to change things up. The potatoes also came in this week! I don't remember if I blogged about it in an earlier post, but we ordered a double batch of Yukon Gold, a batch of Red Gold and Swedish Fingerlings! Should be some good eating come Fall! We will probably start them next weekend. I have had to transplant some of the melons and pumpkins to larger pots already! Once they get established in another couple of weeks or so, we will be able to plant them in the wall o'water. The Baby Pam pumpkins blew out of the soil and almost pushed off the dome lid of the seedling greenhouse! It's amazing! I strung up some grow lights today and we are giving these little baby seedlings all the light we can!

We spent most of the day roto-tilling the garden. We borrowed a tiller from another teacher at school. It's an old machine but stills runs - barely! It's a front tine tiller that's about 35 years old or so... It's not the best but gets the job done!

Adam finished putting up the fence this week... so all we need now is the gate! Adam starting to demolish a couple of old sheds on the property and I am going to build the gate out of the recycled lumber. It will give that aged, rustic appearance and will save money! I am leaning toward a half moon gate that will mirror the arch of the juniper beam lashed above the portal. It will look good in any case! We also need to string the deer wire. Adam went out this week and bought some 8 foot stakes to string the deer wire along. As I have probably mentioned before, deer and elk won't jump over a wire that high... especially when you hang flags off the wire! I am going to cut an old silver, reflective emergency blanket into strips to hang off the wire to make sure the deer notice it!

We are also planting more seeds this weekend! I will post with the types once I get everything finished! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend!

The crew at Rancho Gringos Blancos

The Planting Begins

April 1, 2007

No April Fool’s here… the planting has begun! Well not out in the garden yet but here in the house in seed flats and starter trays. We need to get everything started as soon as possible so that we can fit everything into our growing window. Up here in the mountains of Arizona the summers are hot, but they aren’t very long and the nights can get cool… So all of our seeds have been selected for short growing seasons and high altitude gardening. After searching over the entire area yesterday, we couldn’t find any grow mats/heat mats… but since we needed to get started we did! I ordered some online last night and have jury rigged some heat sources to hopefully work… I put my oil radiator in between and underneath the doors of the wood stove in the inglenook; and put a wire rack on top of the doors and then put the seed trays on top of that… That should give them some heat until the heat mats arrive.

We opted to use some different systems for starting our seeds. We used both Jiffy peat pellets and seed trays with Jiffy strips. The Jiffy peat pellets are soaked in warm water and they pop up to a 1 ½ to 2 inches high filled with sterile mix. The Jiffy strips are peat pots that need to be filled with a soil mix. Last night I set up a station in the kitchen and began adding warm water to the Jiffy pots… they didn’t make a sound but they did “pop” up!!!

I started in on the slowest to germinate and slowest to grow which are the peppers and tomatoes. I started the Alcalde Chile seeds and some unknown seeds from a pepper that Paul “F-ing” Mier gave us. We ran into him on our rounds about town yesterday and he just happened to have some peppers that were too hot for him. Paul is a tall, Lutheran gringo so we weren’t surprised! I have decided to call the unknown peppers the Paul “F-ing” Peppers! So we shall see… I also got all the tomato seeds planted as well. It was pretty exciting. They spent the night on top of the refrigerator until I could fix up the heater.

Today, I planted even more seeds… We also received some bell peppers seeds from another teacher at school. He gave us some red, orange and yellow bell pepper seeds. I hope the come up true because not only are they tasty but the look good in just about everything! Salad, stir fry, and fajitas! I also got started on some melons. I started almost all of the melons: Baby Little Flower Watermelon, Tigger Melon, Sweet Granite and Maverick Cantaloupes as well as the Chimayo Melon too! I haven’t planted any flower seeds yet… but those will be next weekend! Once the garden is completely enclosed I will also be able to set out the lettuces, radishes, carrots, etc. We will also plant the beans and peas too! They don’t mind the cooler weather so much…

And speaking of the garden enclosure, we borrowed a come-along from Adam’s father and were able to secure the last section of fencing. Adam has been tidying up and placing the rabbit fencing up as well. It should be varmint proof before too long! We still need to add our 7-8 foot wire to stop the deer from jumping over. That should be fairly simple though. The hard part will be fixing up the gate so that the javelina can’t knock it over. Adam built the portal wide enough to drive the 4x4 through… so if it’s one gate it will sag. I am thinking of making it two smaller gates that come together in the middle. But I will have to add a stop to make sure nothing can push through. Adam already placed a railroad tie threshold down so that nothing can dig under it. It will be nice and we are getting closer every day!

I have to go clean up head over to a birthday party! That should be fun but nothing like installing your very own garden!

The crew at Rancho Gringos Blancos

Garden Journal

for

Rancho Gringos Blancos

March 31, 2007

A bit late to start the journal, but better late than never! We here at RGB have decided to build and grow a garden. Well at least Adam and I have… Eric isn’t very interested in it. But we shall see…

We staked out a rather large area to the NE of the house with lots of sun all day. Something that is difficult to do in the ponderosa pines! I was concerned that the soil would be horrible and that we would have to remove tons of rocks and add in even more tons of soil amendments like compost, sand and horse manure! But I think that the place had been a garden in a former lifetime! The soil is dark and rich without many rocks! Adam and I started to riddle the soil anyway for our root crops, and the soil is fantastic, perfect composition with tons of worms! Perfect for a garden! We really got lucky because it would have taken us years to get the native soil to a state acceptable for gardening.

The area we staked out keep growing and I think at last count the garden measures about 55 feet by 75 feet! Which comes in at… hang on; I am terrible at math… 4125 square feet!!! This is quite large and should be suitable for our needs! We want to not only be able to feed ourselves but also our friends and still have fresh food leftover for those less fortunate than us. It’s sort of become a spiritual mission here at RGB! Harvest the bounty of the earth and share it with our neighbors! Today we mostly finished the putting up a fence around the plot. Since we live on the edge, we share our place with deer, elk, javelina and of course rabbits! We strung up hog wire around the perimeter and are in the middle of putting up rabbit fencing at the bottom. We will have to string up some with wire with flashers at about 7-8 feet to discourage the deer and elk from jumping in to enjoy quick snack.

Adam and his father put in a sweet entry portal of juniper logs to frame the entry. Adam lashed on a curving cross piece for a swank but rustic look. I am going to build a gate out of some scraps out of some old weathered lumber from an old shed that we are tearing down. It should look pretty nice once it’s finished. You will be able to drive down the driveway at RGB and the first thing you will see past the house will be the entry to the garden. It’s going to be very lovely!

So what are we planting? Good question! We have been checking around with the locals and are planning on planting some things that the local nursery has suggested. We want to support our local businesses rather than the big box retail stores. However, we also wanted to have a swanky garden so we have ordered seeds from other sources via the internet. Some rare and heirloom stuff and some things that are just different from the local offerings.

Some of you may know that I have a background in horticulture. So I have a few favorite seed companies from days past… Except my most favorite, Sheppard’s Seeds, is no longer in business. They were the best! Anyway, after some research on the web, I found several suitable replacements.

I found a fantastic site that sells Native American seeds! They are trying to preserve the heritage of the southwest and the local native cultures. They also sell seeds that have been grown in high mountain regions.

Native Seeds/SEARCH

Chimayo Melon

Escondida Blue Corn

Alcalde Chile

Tarahumara Common Bean

Tarahumara Pink Lentils

Las Trampas Fava Beans

Mt. Pima Tobacco

That’s right gentle people, we are going to grow tobacco! For two reasons: first and most importantly, tobacco/Nicotiana repels insects! Nicotine is found in many insecticides and almost all natural/organic insecticides have nicotine. Second, we would love to be able to age some tobacco and roll our own cigars to enjoy at Lengerfest! This type of tobacco was and is grown for ceremonial reasons by Arizona natives.

What I missed most about Sheppard’s is their Moon and Stars melons! So beautiful and so tasty… an heirloom melon that was so wonderful. Although I could still find it, I didn’t think it would do well in our climate so I searched through other places and found Heirloom Seeds. These guys are cool and are straight up hippies! So I snagged the following:

Tigger Melon

Jet Black Hollyhock

Lime Green Nicotiana

Laurentian Rutabaga

(plus they added in some free lettuce seeds…)

I think that I am in heaven… Can you just imagine it? Black hollyhocks AND lime green nicotiana!!! I think I have died and gone to heaven! It’s going to be soooo beautiful! I am swooning as I write this thinking about that color combination! This just goes to show you that we aren’t going to just plant a bunch of veggies but we are going to do it in style! With my dear friend Jared, I had a plot in a community garden in Anchorage. It was voted the best plot in the garden by our peers… so we are looking for that sort of sensational look with a good producing garden.

I also looked at Johnny’s Selected Seeds. They have lots of different varieties and offer many varieties as certified organic. I have had good luck with their products in the past so we are looking forward to seeing how the work in our climate. From Johnny’s I mostly selected squashes and melons.

Summer Squash

Raven Zucchini

Yellow Crookneck

Cashflow Zucchini

Winter Squash

Jet Acorn

Bonbon Buttercup

Sweet Dumpling

Metro Butternut

Baby Pam Pumpkin

Howden Pumpkin

Melon

Sweet Granite Cantaloupe

Maverick Cantaloupe

Little Baby Flower Watermelon

Mixed Nicotiana

The nicotiana is Nicotiana sylvestris which means “of the forest” so it can be a marginal plant between the garden and the forest and handle some shade. Many people are saying that you can’t grow melons up here… but you can grow squash and pumpkins… but I am going to try melons anyway. I picked early varieties with small fruits. I think they should be okay especially if I pay close attention to them. I can use wall o’ water to start them and even row covers if I have to… I am hoping to be eating melons with the naysayers at the end of summer!

We also placed a fairly large order with Burpee. Burpee is one of the premium seed companies. They have everything… the old stand bys and the all sorts of extras. They are respected and reliable. From Burpee we selected corn, beans, peas, tomatoes and potatoes.

Ruby Queen Sweet Corn

Silver Choice Sweet Corn

Scarlet Runner Bean (doing double duty… looking good and providing food!)\

Purple King Pole Bean

Gold Mine Bush Bean

Mammoth Melting Sugar Pea

High Scent Sweet Pea (just for the flowers! They smell heavenly!)

Juliet Tomato (cherry, roma shaped)

Yellow Pear Tomato (cherry, pear shaped)

Little Mama Tomato (small roma)

Golden Mama Tomato (roma)

Sweet Tangerine Tomato (hey, it’s orange!)

Chioggia Beet

(they sent Burpee’s Butterfly Mix for free seeds!)

So we have quite the selection of veggies plus the stuff we are going to pick up from the local nurseries. It should be quite the garden once we get things up and running. I am looking forward to planting already! I will be ordering a heat mat later this evening and also will be starting some toms and chile tomorrow. June 1^st is the official “frost free” date up here in the White Mountains – so I have to start my tomato and chile seeds 8 weeks prior! I also just found out that we can set out tomato starts as early as April 15^th with walls o’ water. We will pick up some tomato starts form the nursery. They have the basics like Early Girl – a good producer but not very tasty! But it will be a good experiment to see how the climate reacts to everything!