Summer to Fall, A Quick Transition

Our first frost came just when it was supposed to, between September 25-30, so I guess fall is really here. Monsoon rains are over, pine needles are dropping, the yellow zucchini plants look droopy, the maple tree is shedding its leaves and bees and butterflies are having last call drinks from the yellow chamisa blossoms. But days still feel like summer. A friend who was harvesting onions yesterday remarked on how searing the sun felt.

We have crazy apples this year, so apple juice, canned apple pie filling, dried apples, and who knows what else will be preserved.  This is one of three different trees, so I look at them with love and also with dread. It's lot of work to put up all these apples, but worth it when I don't have to buy something at the store.

Red Delicious Apple Tree

Last week we had friends over for dinner: chuck roast, potatoes, country style green beans and a cucumber and tomato salad. I realized later that the only thing we'd bought from the store were potatoes. That's a good feeling.

This stuff was grown inside our Growing Dome

Although the grama grass grew well this past summer, look at that dry dirt! Let's hope for snow.

 This isn't about fall, but just an update on the new pup, Liza Jane. She's a crazy nut, enjoys fetching, and likes to be out and about exploring the ranch, digging holes, and thinking about what it might be like to herd four legged ruminants. Here she is contemplating the neighboring yak herd.

I am still amazed at the changing seasons and don't think I will ever tire of it.

Letter From Northern New Mexico

Hello, Friends,

Summer is almost gone: Nights are cooler, leaves are turning, and a successful monsoon season is drawing to a close. That said, it's time for a big old catch-up session because I haven't been writing and there's much to see here in Northern New Mexico.

We've been here for 8 years now and even though there were a few bets that we wouldn't last, here we are.

So let's get to it.

We still have cattle, but it's a rotating cast of characters. These guys were Regis and Phil(bin). Tom named them; not I. 

Regis and Phil(bin) are gone now to the great pasture in the sky and we are grateful to them.

Our new pup, Liza Jane, has been a handful. We went from exceedingly polite Ms. Pearl to a bossy tornado. This is a rare puppy pic of her lying still.

Summer gardening was successful. I think having a canine tornado keeps the bunnies from eating too much.

 This was early in the season. We had asparagus, green beans, kale, carrots, strawberries, sugar snap peas, and there's some broccoli I'm hoping will weather the upcoming cooler weather. The kale was especially pretty. I even froze some and I will tell you how another time. I used this kale for Zuppa Toscana. I found a copycat recipe for this Olive Garden favorite and it was yum!

Inside the Growing Dome we had a good season, too. Up here at 7200 feet it can be iffy for tomatoes and indoor gardening solves this problem. This year I grew five plants: Golden Jubilee, Black Cherry, Chocolate Sprinkles, good old Early Girl and Brad's Atomic Grape. All did well and I froze some, made a tomato and gruyere galette, and sometimes leaned  over the sink, salt shaker in hand, and ate them like apples, juice everywhere.

Tomato Plants Growing Like Crazy

Straight Eight Cucumber Plants and Burgundy Green Beans

A Few Tomatoes

Tom has been cutting up a cottonwood tree that split in two.

We really don't need firewood because last winter was so mild, we didn't even touch the artistic wood piles I made.

And he chopped thousands of thistles, which are noxious, invasive weeds. I don't have any photos of that.

I set up a sewing area on the porch.

Here was my view:

There was a field trip to Santa Fe's Botanical Gardens.

And to the Santa Fe Opera, twice! It was my first time experiencing opera and I loved it. People have tailgate dinners here, so we did the same. The big difference was our tailgate had road dust inside and out, and just as I was taking the photo, there was a wine mishap, but you get the idea.

I think I'm growing up. Opera? Wow.

It's always nice to come back home, though, to our little bubble.

See you next time!

Growing Dome May 2015

My winter and spring haven is inside the Growing Dome, a snug, warm place when outside the wind is howling and temperatures are below freezing.

I have fun trying new veggie varieties, so in some ways the dome is like a laboratory. My dad often said, "Let's see what happens!" so that's what I do.

Below are Kalettes, a new brussels sprouts-kale hybrid, almost ready to pick. The little rosette in the center of the leaves are the Kalette part. The leaves look like normal kale, so I'll let you know how I end up cooking this lab experiment.

Just past the Kalettes are some new lettuce seedlings and Royal Burgundy green beans.

Here's a chard jungle. Everyone who visits or whom I visit, receives a bouquet of rainbow chard. Want a good chard recipe? Here you go.

 We've been eating lots of sugar snap peas. Our summer weather is cool, so more sugar snaps will be planted this week for the outside garden.

 The carrots aren't ready yet, but look good.

I'm trying for more flowers in the dome because they add color to the space.

Some pretty peonies.

And Trudy, look at the pomegranate plant you gave me a year ago Christmas! I didn't kill it.

One problem with growing inside are bug critters. In the past the dome has been host to aphids, white flies, and some black gnat-like annoyances who lived in the soil. We learn from our mistakes, one which was planting stuff too close together and allowing the soil to become too damp. Everything needs to dry out now and then to keep the creepies at bay. Right now I am playing host to crickets and roly polies, but they are manageable.

Two years ago was whitefly summer and the tomato plants slowly had their lives sucked out of them. I removed the affected plants, but it was just too late and those pests just never went away.  I ended up removing every plant and giving the dome a much needed airing out before replanting.

This year I am trying something new: the tomatoes are in Smart Pots, so if there is an infestation, I can remove the affected plant more efficiently. This looks like a good idea for peppers, since they seem to attract aphids.

So far, the tomatoes are growing well in their bags. I used a mixture of compost and potting soil and they will need trellising very soon.

I hope you enjoyed the update. Happy gardening!

Growing Dome- Fall 2014

It really is fall here, now, with the pretty aspen trees and last night's below freezing temperatures. In SoCal, there really aren't distinct seasons, but just hot and not so hot. Back in California, when it dipped into the 50's, I'd get out my long underwear and think I was really cold.

 But I didn't really know what cold was until I moved to Northern New Mexico. Heck, there's a small community around here whose nickname is Little Alaska, for heaven's sake!

But I am willing to put on my coat and longies for winter because it's a fine trade for wonderful, temperate summers. Months of over 100 degrees is not my thing, so I find the lightest weight, high performance warmies to wear during wintertime and deal with it.

One way I cope with colder weather is with my Growing Dome, where I have a chance to garden and to bask in the winter sun. Over 300 days of sunshine definitely hits the spot.

During winter I grow cool season crops like chard, kale, lettuce, and all that.

 During summer, I grow most of my tomatoes and all of my cucumbers inside the dome. Some friends grow tomatoes outdoors, but I seem to have bad luck with outdoor tomato plants. They give me a few and then it freezes. I know I could mess around with walls of water and little hoop houses, so maybe that's on the agenda for next year.

Right now my outdoor tomatoes are toast, but inside things are still perking along.

It's like a jungle sometimes/ Sometimes I wonder how I keep from going under (Sorry-Grandmaster Flash took over for a sec.)

In here it's usually about 20 degrees warmer. Temp outside was 29F last night, but all is well inside the dome.

Here's a pretty yellow tomato. I had some red ones, but a varmint climbed inside and chewed them down. We added some wire mesh to the side air vents, so maybe that will keep the little @#$@ out.

We still have plenty of green tomatoes, so if our days are in the 50's to 60's for a while longer,  they will ripen.

We have a load of cucumbers on the vines. Earlier in the summer there were juicy, tasty green straight eight's. Then a couple weeks ago the cucumbers started looking like this. I waited for them to turn green but they never did. They taste fine except for a little bitterness at the stem end (my fault for not being a consistent waterer). Earlier I replanted some varmint-ravaged plants, and maybe they were Poona Kheera seeds? It's a mystery.

Each time I visit the dome there is something to pick, which is totally cool. Earlier I had a bumper crop of Shishito peppers, but the aphids made them anemic, so I had to pull the plants. Those peppers were the best, though, just sauteed with a little salt and lime. Yum!

My fishies are doing well. Last year I was mystified to see strange little fish in the dome's water tank, then realized my original three goldfish had a menage a trois which resulted in fourteen goldfish babies! 

Not Koi, but plain old Wal-Mart goldfish, they recognize me when I lean over to visit, happy to eat their fish food pellets.  During winter they hunker down at the bottom of the tank and wait for spring.

So come on, winter! I'm ready for you. 

Well, kind of.

Marching Into Spring

Geez, that's a corny title, but spring is almost here and I'm itching to plant some stuff outside. Considering June 1 is our last frost date, I have a way to go, but a girl can still dream, can't she?

Inside the Growing Dome, though, we have a flourishing garden of winter veggies.

On the left are Waldmann's Dark Green lettuce and a red lettuce variety. I can't remember its name, but will look it up if you are interested. I use a cut and come again technique. All these lettuces have had haircuts and the leaves just keep growing back. All I do is use some organic fertilizer on them once in a while and we've had lettuce all winter.

That's some rainbow chard to the right of the lettuce. I will give them a trim, too, but their leaves take longer to grow back.

Below, take a look at the kale, romaine and basil.

I tried this dwarf kale for the first time in the dome and it's doing well. I keep cutting its leaves and they grow right back. The same goes for the romaine lettuce, called Little Gem. It's the gift that keeps on coming. These little varieties for the dome are perfect because it's just the two of us eating from this garden and they don't take up too much space.

At Trader Joe's I bought a pot of live basil for $3.99. When I looked more closely, there were five separate plants, so re-potted four of them and stuck the fifth in the dome's planter bed. All are doing well, but if we were to get some sub zero weather, we'd cover them and say a prayer since basil is a definitely a warm weather plant.

Outdoors it's still too cold to plant anything, but here's a look at my bed of garlic, its shoots peeking up from the straw mulch I put on there last fall. Plant garlic by Halloween and it's ready for harvest by the Fourth of July.

I have big plans for these raised beds. We all just have to wait.

Last, a reason why I love living here. Yesterday I stopped off at our local grocery store, a little place that has shown much improvement since we moved here almost four years ago.

I needed eggs, and among the Shur-Fine brand eggs, were these. They are from a local farmer who I know and trust and isn't it just cool that I can say, "Oh, those are Roger's eggs."

And aren't they pretty?

That's all today, peeps. I am close to a quilt finish, so stay tuned.

Raised Beds and Growing Dome Update-Late Summer 2013

Back in June, Mike Salman and his crew were building the raised beds which replaced the grass in the side yard. I wanted the veggies growing close and inside the stucco wall to discourage critters and because I am lazy. I like lettuce grown just a few steps from the house.

Even though it was almost a full month late, I decided to plant the stuff I had started in the dome.Why not, I figured. There was no room in the dome, so out they went.

I planted tomatoes, kale, cabbage, peppers, lettuce, carrots and purple green beans. There are also three melon plants with no melons.

Here are the green beans, called Royal Burgundy. When you cook the purple beans, they turn green. I like them because my dad always planted them and they're easy to find when it's time to pick. Today's the first picking of the outside beans! Yay!

I haven't killed the flower garden, yet.

Over in the Growing Dome it's a tomato jungle inside. I planted fewer tomato plants this year since they overwhelmed the other plants.

But they still crowded and covered the basil, cucumbers, peppers and one last crop of indoor green beans.

The other side is crazy, too. Note to self: You may need to revisit how to corral the tomatoes.

And it's the lonely, empty bee yard.  I saw their new mom yesterday, though, and she says the bees have easily adapted to their new terroir, which makes me happy.

Late summer looks pretty good, don't you think?