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!