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Friday, March 29, 2013

Growing Dome Report: Early Spring 2013

Early spring in Northern New Mexico is not pretty. Everything still looks dead and three years ago when we first moved here, this SoCal gal wondered if any of the plants, trees, or grass would ever come back.

Looking north toward the cabin and Growing Dome

Temps are still as low as 3 degrees with highs in the 30's or 40's. The wind howls and it sounds like the roof is going to be ripped off. It's times like these that I remind myself that summer will be in the temperate 70's and 80's and not over 100F for weeks like at our old home.

The Growing Dome is the place to be during times like these. With the sun shining it's in the 70's and 80's which makes it cozy to sit in the Adirondack chair, read, listen to the wind, and watch stuff grow.


Below is the eastern side of the dome. I planted most of this stuff in late September. We ate lettuce, radishes, carrots, chard and kale throughout the winter.

Cast of characters here: kale, onions, rainbow chard, carrots and broccoli rabe.

Here are some closeups:

Broccoli Rabe

Carrots, rainbow chard, and red stalk celery

The radishes look as pretty as their picture.
I just bought a Meyer lemon tree. In the background are some EarthBoxes. Box 1: spearmint, Box 2: rosemary in the back and cilantro sprouting in the front, Box 3 (which you will just have to imagine): lemon thyme in the back, basil in the front. The rosemary and lemon thyme are a year old now.


The west side of the dome has been my lettuce garden and it's almost done and I have to wash off the aphids before we eat the leaves. I know, "Yuck!" But there's some protein there, I guess. I've been keeping the aphids in check with insecticidal soap which works if I keep at it.

Some of the sugar snap peas are ready to pick.


And I have one last crop of snap peas waiting in the wings. These were planted late February.


Pretty soon it will be time to plant the warm season crops: beans, tomatoes, cukes are number one on the list. Yay!

And here's another Yay!  We will be adding some raised beds where the south lawn is, so I can grow more stuff outside! We don't need that much lawn and why not have a potager (kitchen garden) just outside your house?

Happy Spring, everyone!


4 comments:

  1. We are in central CA in the depths of those 100 degree summers... right now it's a pleasant 65-70 and everything has greened up. I see you have plenty of green year round... it is a happiness color, I'd say. Good gardening.
    Hugs

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  2. I Love your growing dome...WHat a treat to have those greens at hand that way...I recall your tomatoes from last yr...wow.

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  3. Love your dome! I'm hoping to get a lean-to growing area added to the back side of our house this year... not huge, but will give me a great place to start early crops of salad food, which is what I crave! Thanks for sharing your Dome report, and happy Spring!

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  4. Great garden! You can order lady bugs to feast on all the aphids. Granted they probably won't stay in the greenhouse, but at least they'll take care of the aphid situation. :)

    My family and I are coming up to see some property near you. Our appointment is at 3:00 and we'll be leaving here in a few hours. Down here in central NM the temperature hovers beautifully at around 75 degrees, so I'm very glad you wrote a post about the temps right now. We would have headed up there in our t-shirt and shorts, and no jackets. LOL

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