Las Conchas Fire Grows to 43,000 Acres this Morning June 27 2011

Las Conchas fire view from house overlooking Santa Fe at night June 26

So I know this is a gardening blog but want to share some pictures of the newest fire up by Los Alamos that is affecting all of us here in Santa Fe even though we are in no danger.  It is now BURNED OVER 43,000 ACRES and is within one mile of the lab.  Yesteday it was at 3000 acres. You can see it from the house. The view last night was spectacular. When I woke up this morning, there is lots of ash on my cars and a gray shroud of smoke over us. All photos taken by Elodie Holmes.

Las Conchas fire yesterday June 26 at about 8 pm driving back to the house.

Las Conchas fire from tea house area at house

Las Conchas smoke sitting heavy over Santa Fe this morning June 27

Las Conchas ash on cars this morning June 27

Tomato care in June

The Wall of Waters are all off the tomatoes now. I used Companion fungicide as a drench. They got a little wet in the Wall of Waters and I wanted to make sure they wouldn’t come down with early blight while gone on my trip. I also sprayed on the foliage Serenade, which is a foliar fungicide. So one end gets the drench and the other end gets the foliar spray. I figure if you zap them both ways, I should have better protection. When I came back,  all looked good except one which was diseased so I tossed it in the garbage, not the compost. Don’t leave diseased plants in the ground to possibly pass on diseases to healthy plants. Then I staked them all up with bamboo stakes and tied up the branches. I cut off any branches that touched the ground so as to not spread any soilborne diseases. Next I had to redefine my wells and put straw over the well to conserve water, help with evaporation and keep soilbourne diseases from splashing up on the tomato plants. Afterward I decided to sterilize my tomato cages since I had some loss due to diseases last year. Might be overkill but I want to be cautious this year before I put them over this year’s tomatoes-don’t want to spread any diseases. I used a 10% solution in a gallon of water (that’s about 1 .75 cup bleach to one gallon water) and sprayed my cages with a hand sprayer. Now I need to put the cages over the tomato plants and start picking off suckers that are showing up. Arrgh, a gardener’s work is never done…

All this work for this..

Virginia Sweet Tomato

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

I escaped the heat for awhile..

Williams Creek Reservoir (in background) and pond (foreground)

Took a few days off from everything. I’m back after a wonderful flyfishing trip in the Colorado mountains and then down to San Juan River in New Mexico for a few days. My soul desperately needed some green grass to look at since it looks more and more like a desert here with no rain for months. Just what the doctor ordered. I noticed on the drive up once we hit Chama the countryside got lush and green with all that grass and stayed green all through Colorado. We went up to Williams Creek Reservoir, CO outside Pagosa Springs to float tube. Ahh, nice and cool and caught and released many fish-Brookies, Rainbows, Cutthroats, Cuttbows, and Kokanee Salmon. Wonderful time until we heard 50 mph winds and snow and rain were forecasted for Sunday night with temperatures in the 20’s°F. Too cold for me so then we went down to my favorite fly fishing spot, the San Juan River right here in New Mexico. Back to drier climate again but the temperature was balmy: 75°F in the day with temps dropping into the mid-40’s°F at night-delightful! Also caught many fish there and got some dry fly fishing in too. Here are a few pictures.

View from campsite with lake in background

Skunkweed at lake

Trout at San Juan River

Long gourds trellis

Baby long gourd plants-4 inches tall

Here are the baby long gourd plants that hopefully will grow into giant long gourds! I can’t imagine it. They’re so small!

Long gourd trellis in garden

Here is the giant long gourd trellis that Caleb and I built that will offer support to the long gourd plants that will grow up it. Yea right! It is 10 feet tall and about 3 feet wide. I can’t imagine growing a long gourd that tall much less even think about those teeny weeny little plants going all the way to the top of this gigantic trellis but it will be fun to try! I guess I better move the ladder down to the garden…

long gourds growing on trellis (not mine!)

Here are some pictures of the 2007 world record long gourd that reached just over 127 inches that another person grew. The plant is really beautiful. In the picture above the long gourd was so tall they had to dig a hole in the ground so it would keep growing straight! If it hits the ground it will start to curl.

looking up inside a trellis (not mine!)

Looking up at the gourds from inside a trellis-Beautiful!

Here is a picture looking up through the trellis at the long gourds. This looks so lush! I wonder what I will be able to do in this desert!?

The current world record for long gourd is a whopping 135 inches tall-that’s just over 11 foo tall. Now that’s a lot of gourd! Wish me luck-I’m going to need it!

Shishito peppers struggling/Eggplants doing well

This shishito not doing very well

My peppers and eggplants get the royal treatment. They all have a well, drip system, row cover over them and Thrive and Seaweed given to them to adjust to the outside. They should be doing well but at least 2/3 of my shishito peppers are struggling. They should not looked like this! They have not adjusted to the heat and wind very well. I hope I get some out of the 16 I planted. They are a picky little plant. If it’s not too cold for them, then it’s too hot or too windy. They’re just not happy. Perhaps that is why they cost so much at the Farmers Market. I’ve already given them extra seaweed and Thrive. I find them harder to grow than other varieties and they stay small forever. Last year I don’t recall them struggling so much. I may pull the wall of waters off the tomatoes that are doing well and growing out of them and put them on these peppers.

On the other hand, my Pepperoncini peppers are doing well. They were a little larger than the Shishitos when I planted them and have adjusted well. I think they had stronger roots which would help in adjusting to the elements.

All the eggplants-Fairys and Rosa Bianco varieties are small but doing well and have new growth. They love the heat.

Giant pumpkin care today

chop sticks help push the giant pumpkin vine down

If you were crazy enough try to grow giant pumpkins this year, here is some advice from this obsessive giant pumpkin grower!

To grow a giant pumpkin, you must BABY them. They need a lot of CARE. It’s like RAISING A VERY LARGE CHILD or more like JABBA THE HUT. You don’t go out and just throw some seeds in the ground and expect to grow a record pumpkin. You wouldn’t be able to go out and become a world boxing champ without training, lots of proper food and working up for it and so it is with giant pumpkins. A person asked me last year at the GPC (Great Pumpkin Commonwealth) weigh-off in Colorado Springs, Co how do I grow them? I asked him if he planted some and he said, “Yes, but they didn’t do anything”. So I asked him if he amended the soil, had them on a fertilizer program, used organic fungicides for diseases, did any preventative insect control or hand pollinated them just for starters. He said, “No, I didn’t do any of that. I just put the seeds in the ground”. I told him that’s probably why he wasn’t successful. Then he asked me, “What do you feed these big pumpkins?” For which I responded looking at his kid, “Small children”! Then he grabbed his child and ran off! The point being you must be some kind of nut to want to grow these behemoths!

Today I fertilized the pumpkin plants, greenie and marrows with Seaweed and Fish emulsion and added Super Thrive since I took off the shade cloth and they have to adjust again.  Mind you they still have a low tunnel over them and another layer of row cover directly on them but I am now weaning them off so much protection since they have gone through their first adjustment well and I see new growth. I also started them on ‘Companion’, an organic fungicide, which helps ward off  fungal diseases. All these things go in a bucket of water so it’s easy to apply. They are still taking 1/2 gallon of water a day. I also put chop sticks over the stem (see photo), making an ‘x’ with them, gently pushing the vine down towards the ground. Push the sticks with the plant  a little farther towards the ground every few days until the plant is lying on the ground. If you let them stay tall, they could snap off in the wind so I must train them to lay low! This pumpkin plant in the picture comes from the same one that last year grew the 2010 NM State Record. I also have it’s cousin plant (who comes from a bigger pumpkin), but this plant is already much bigger than it’s cousin. I love this seed!

Tomatoes are doing excellent in Wall of Waters

tomatoes coming out of wall of waters

All of my tomatoes that are in Wall of Waters are kicking ass right now, many of them outgrowing the Wall of Waters  (WOW) and needing me to take the WOW off. The 2 tomatoes that didn’t have Wall of Waters (I ran out) are struggling, even under row cover for protection. It is amazing to me how good the tomatoes do inside those wall of waters and how poorly they do without them. The Wall of Waters act like little greenhouses and are worth every dollar they cost. As a result almost all of my tomatoes have a great head start on the season. I know I’ve talked about them before, but they are worth a mention again. If you want to be really successful with tomatoes, I think you must get these and use them when you first transplant.

Planting Giant Pumpkins-In ground- June 1!

Giant pumpkin inside low tunnel

On Wednesday  I transplanted the giant pumpkins in Bri’s Pumpkin Patch here at the property.

Bri, my horsey, is no longer with me. Last year I used her 2000 sq foot corral as the giant pumpkin patch and I got a New Mexico State Record-421 lbs for Giant Pumpkin last year. I think she is watching over them! I miss her terribly.

Here’s how I plant the pumpkin transplants that I started in the house.

1. First I dig out an area about 4 feet around and 1-2 feet deep where their root system will grow. This year I added generous amounts of compost, 1/2 cup of mycorrhizal, 1 cup humate, and 1 cup of worm castings and mixed it into the area. (I did not add any fertilizers as my soil test I had done in Spring said I was high in nitrogen, potassium, and potash, which is your basic fertilizer ingredients. (This is weird because the pumpkins usually use up all available nutrients by the end of the season. The only thing I did last fall was put some chicken manure on top of the ‘holes’. I didn’t even dig it in but I think the nutrients leached into the soil from the winter snows and increased the levels.)

2. Then I dig a small hole where I place the pumpkins and I add another handful of worm castings and 1/2 cup more of mycorrhizal (it’s dry granule stuff) and mix them together. This way the castings and mycorrhizal will be right in the immediate root zone in the beginning and the bigger amended area will be accessible as the root system grows.

3. I carefully peeled off the peat pot including the bottom so not to disturb the roots but if the pumpkin is root bound, I must carefully squeeze the roots to loosen them up so they can grow outwards. This year I didn’t have to do that. I placed the pumpkins in the bottom of the hole opposite the first true leaf so it grows in the direction I want and put the amended soil back around the root ball. I make a well around the plant so I can add water right to the root zone.

4. In a 5 gallon bucket, I added 1 tsp/1 gallon of water of liquid seaweed and about 3 drops of Super Thrive/1 gallon of water which helps immensely with transplant shock. Super Thrive is super expensive and super good. It has lots of the B vitamin complex in it which helps with stress-just like for us! I first watered the well 2x to make sure all the soil was soaked around the plant, then I added the liquid seaweed/thrive in water to the well.

5. I put the Seaweed and Thrive with the water in each day for about 5 days, then afterwards I normally give them water with fish emulsion once a week but for now since my nitrogen is high I will wait awhile. I do water every day with about a 1/2 gal of water right now.

6. I don’t put fertilizers in the water every time I water, normally just once a week. I will also add other things to the water once a week but will discuss that as I go along in the season. I still have to do a drip system for the pumpkins and will hand water them until I get it up and running.

7. I cover the transplant with a small piece of row cover to help it in it’s transition with the intense sun and wind and keep rabbits away. I tack it down with rocks.

8. On Thursday I put the low tunnels I previously made over the already covered pumpkins to protect them from the heat and wind even more.  Low tunnels are like high tunnels but only go over the plants. You can’t walk inside them-they are low!  They will stay on till the plants grow out of them at the end.  So far they are looking good. The soil is nice and warm at 70°F.

9. Saturday (today) I put the shade covering over the low tunnels as the sun is sooo intense right now. I can take it off once they adjust to the outside elements.

Can any pumpkin become a Giant Pumpkin?

Christy Harp with her 2009 World Record Giant Pumpkin-1725 lbs!

Can ANY pumpkin grow super big if you feed it a lot? The answer is no. Just as there are varieties of tiny pumpkins (like Tom Thumb-2 lbs), there are varieties that grow medium size (field pumpkins-15-25 lbs), big size varieties (Big Max-100 lbs) and then there is ONE variety that grows RECORDS-STATE AND WORLD RECORDS! The current Atlantic Giant Pumpkin World Record is 1810 lbs, grown by Chris Stevens of Wisconsin. The picture above is of Christy Harp of Ohio who held the record in 2009. This picture just shows you how big they are! They say someone will hit the 2000 lb mark within a couple of years but it won’t be me. I don’t live in an area that would be conducive to that-too short of growing season here in Santa Fe. It was hard enough growing a giant pumpkin 421 lbs last year here. Of course I’m trying to break my own record again this year!

Now that we are (finally) getting into giant pumpkin season, I will share my techniques for growing them throughout the season. Stayed tuned…

Main Garden is planted BUT…

The main garden is planted except for a couple of seeds. Yea! BUT the new drip system manifold isn’t working so I must take it back to Firebird to see what I did wrong in the setup. I’ll have to wait until Tuesday as Monday is a holiday. Meanwhile I’ll hook up the old system again so I don’t have to water the whole garden tomorrow by hand-what a dreadful thought! I use to like to hand water but since the garden has gotten so big and I saw how the garden did so much better on a drip system, I feel it is the only way to go nowadays. Besides it saves a ton of water which is important in the high desert of Santa Fe.

Planting, planting, planting…

Well, if you are wondering why I haven’t been posting, it is because I’ve been out PLANTING, trying to get the last of the garden in. So far, I have 70 tomato plants, ‘Rattlesnake’ pole beans around my trellis, 4 ‘Pepperocini’ pepper plants, 16 eggplants, 2 rhubarbs and put additional wall of waters around all of the tomatoes and created some new drip sections for all these.

Tomorrow (Sunday) goes in 12 shishito pepper plants, bush bean seeds, pole bean seeds, 4 different types of cucumbers seeds, ornamental japonica corn, flowers and a new drip system manifold (I take a deep breath now) I hope to get this done (early-way early!) before the BIG WINDS come in AGAIN and make life MISERABLE….

Monday goes in 2 giant pumpkins, 1 giant greenie squash, 2 giant marrows and a giant pear gourd go in. The long gourds will have to wait till I make them a trellis later this week or next.

Phew! It is always such a big push in spring to get things in the garden and fall come harvest time. The rest of the time I feel like I’m just cruising in the garden! All this on 4000 sq feet of garden which is only 1/10 of an acre…

Time to plant your vegetable seeds outside in Santa Fe

Weather next 5 days from May 24

Look at the forecast! Finally summer is upon us! I can’t wait! Yesterday my soil temperature was 70° F in my main vegetable garden so I feel like it is safe to plant our warm season seeds now. I will plant squash, cucumbers, and bean seeds as soon as I can get them in now. Do cover them with some row cover to help keep the birds and 4 legged critters from eating your seedlings as they come up.

I also will transplant the peppers, eggplants and the rest of my tomatoes as well. I have too many  veggies still to plant so I have decided not to grow winter squash as it takes so much space in the garden. Besides I grow giant pumpkins, the biggest squash of all so I can just eat that in the fall! Hope I can find room for everything!

My blog is carbon neutral

My blog is carbon neutral

“My blog is carbon neutral” is an initiative, originally started in Germany by the “Make it Green” programme, that has the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They plant one tree for each of the blogs that participate and thereby neutralise that blog’s carbon footprint for the next 50 years! But you must participate! Even though we have less of a footprint than printed material, we still leave a footprint.

How much carbon dioxide does your blog create?

According to a study by Alexander Wissner-Gross, PhD, physicist at Harvard University and environmental activist, an average website causes about 0.02g (0,0008oz.) of carbon dioxide for each visit. Assuming an average blog gets 15,000 visits a month, it has yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 3,6kg (8lb.). Now my blog doesn’t get 15,000 visits a month but according to this, it does use up energy. This can mainly be tracked back to the immense energy usage from (mainframe) computers, servers, and their cooling systems.

One tree neutralises the carbon dioxide emissions of your blog

The atmosphere can be relieved by an average of 5kg (11lb.) carbon dioxide every year by planting one tree. An average blog causes 3.6kg (8lb.) of carbon dioxide emissions. Consequently, a tree neutralises the carbon dioxide emissions of a blog. Since a tree lives for an average of 50 years, carbon dioxide emissions of your blog can be completely neutralised for this time period.

Being part of the initiative “My blog is carbon neutral” is an active contribution to help the environment!  Make it happen – make it green!  To find out more go  here to see the latest update.

Cold Weather AGAIN!

Here we go again! Cold nights! This morning was 32°F at the house. All of us who patiently waited for the magical date of May 15th to plant vegetables have been foiled again! Looks like it’s going to be cold AGAIN tonight in the high 30’s again. Of course tomorrow and thereafter the nights are suppose to be in the 40s again. Weird weather!