Category Archives: COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS

‘Plant a Row’ for the Hungry in Your Garden

Every year I give about 700 lbs of organically grown GIANT PUMPKIN in November to the Food Depot here in Santa Fe. It feels good to not waste any food that I’ve grown and I grow so much. Yes, I am the ‘Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market and make a little money but I like to donate food I’ve grown as well. It feels good to give back to the community.

So this year I’ve created another small vegetable garden patch at our studio, Liquid Light Glass in an empty plot in front of the parking lot where it was just dirt and weeds.  We will be growing tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini and beans.  The food produced there will be donated to The Food Bank and other organizations that help feed the hungry.

The Food Bank is a service organization that distributes food in Northern New Mexico to communities in need.  They encourage gardeners in the area to ‘plant an extra row’ in their vegetable garden and donate the produce to help feed the hungry.  ‘Plant a Row for the Hungry’ is a Public Service Program that was originally started by The Garden Writers Association in 1995.

Maybe you can ‘plant an extra row’ and donate some of your produce for the hungry. Here is the PlantARow flyer  from The Food Depot explaining how you can help.

Master Gardener Intern Class-Vegetables

I’ve been totally busy teaching classes lately and the last class I taught was the Santa Fe Master Gardener Intern Class on Vegetables. All I can say to the interns is hang in there. Yes there are some difficult classes to get through but there are some great instructional classes as well that are like a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t till I became a Master Gardener that I really blossomed as a gardener. And now I am a rabid gardener! The knowledge you will continue to gain afterwards, the contacts, camaraderie and friendships you will develop will help you grow as well as the plants you will be growing! Hopefully you enjoyed and learned a lot from the Vegetable class. (Yes it was my favorite class when I was an intern!) So for those of you who couldn’t come to class or aren’t in the program but are interested, here are the information sheets. I want to make them available to all.

VEGETABLE GARDENING IN SANTA FE  gives an overview of vegetable gardening in Santa Fe.

INFORMATION SHEET covers what the differences are  between an Heirloom, Hybrid and GMO plant and explains what mycorrhizae fungi is and how it helps plants grow.

HERBS is a list of perennial and annual herbs we can grow here in Santa Fe.

PLANTING TOMATOES and PLANTING SQUASH both address how to transplant them into the garden and some of the things I add to help grow these beautiful vegetables and also how to help thwart the dreaded squash vine borer and squash bugs.

SEED STARTING DATE CALCULATOR from Johnny’s Seeds is the same one from the previous post but if you didn’t read it, then here it is. A great tool for when to start seeds or transplant them into the garden.

And now if you will excuse me, I will continue starting my seeds inside! Perfect day-cold, windy and snowy!

Homegrown New Mexico-Vegetable Gardens, Potagers and Coop Tour

Today I volunteered at the first Homegrown New Mexico tour of 6 homes featuring vegetable gardens, potagers and chicken coops. I can’t say how impressed I am with this organization. First, they picked some fantastic examples in our city. The tour was incredibly organized AND they are only 5 months old. Phew! A big chunk to bite off and they did it extraordinarily well. At every site I got several ideas that I will want to incorporate into my own gardens. Here are some of the things I particularly enjoyed. Great job to all!

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Teaching ‘ORGANIC PEST AND DISEASE CONTROLS’ class-Tomorrow-June 25

Photo Courtesy of Homegrown New Mexico

Tomorrow (Saturday) I teach an ORGANIC PEST AND DISEASE CONTROLS CLASS-JUNE 25 for vegetable gardeners at the  Milagro Community Gardens from 9 am-10:30am put on by HOMEGROWN NEW MEXICO organization. I will cover organic insecticides for various insect control and other organic methods to control many insects. I will also cover identification of many diseases and organic disease control. LOCATION: Milagro Community Garden on Legacy and Rodeo Road.  Turn on Legacy and the parking lot is on the right, behind the Lutheran Church.

Home Grown New Mexico, a non-profit organization, creates venues where individuals, businesses and organizations that support home grown food production can exchange products, ideas and expertise. The vision is to enable New Mexicans to take personal responsibility for growing, raising, making and storing healthy food. For more information on them go to: http://www.homegrownnewmexico.org/

Here are pdfs of all my handouts for the class for those interested:

ORGANIC CONTROLS IN THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

ORGANIC INSECTICIDE CONTROLS

ORGANIC DISEASE CONTROLS

TOMATO DISEASES

PLANT RECIPES

As a bonus here are 2 more pdfs that were not available in the class but are available here.

SQUASH BUG PREFERENCE CHART

ATTRACTING BENEFICIAL INSECTS

Santa Fe Master Gardeners Herb Sheet

I just finished teaching the Vegetable class this evening class for our Master Gardener Interns and realized during the class I didn’t xerox off the Herb Info sheet. I told the class they can get it here by Tuesday but I’m teaching the other class at 9am so here it is now for anyone liking a copy of it. You can get it here HERBS as a pdf and print it out for yourselves. Class was great tonight with some very intelligent questions and I hope they all enjoyed it!

Santa Fe Master Gardener Vegetable Class

Tonight and tomorrow am, I ‘m teaching the Vegetable Garden class to our new interns in the Santa Fe Master Gardener Class. I can’t wait! There is so much useful information that it will be hard to share it in only 2 hours. Coming to my blog is a much better way to get information on a daily basis as we move forward in this new gardening season!  I’m planning to give more how-to info and advanced info on vegetable gardening this year. I hope many of you will also exchange useful information with me this year. You can send your information via commenting on a post so others can see it and learn as well. Now is the time to get busy in our veggie gardens! Plant something that still likes cold nights-like greens!