Retiring to the Frontier Part 3 and a Fond Adios

Liza Jane

I wanted to finish this three part post by talking about Northern New Mexico culture, but I've realized that there are multiple cultures here and many of us have picked up ways of living from all of them.

It's an appreciation of heritage, of having a connection to this place for hundreds of years. Our friend Ernest Martinez' family goes back to the 1800's. We live on a ranch that was once owned by his grandparents.

Ernesto Martinez

It's a reverence for spirituality, be it organized Catholic religion or a celebration of just being part of This Earth.

Santa Rita Catholic Church, Lucero, NM

Good Friday Pilgrims

It's a sense of community, whether it's making a quilt together, voting, or celebrating Summer Solstice.

It's doing it yourself, self reliance, and an appreciation for the animals that sustain you.

Tom staking the bridge after a flood

Bridget doing something rare: Feeding the stock

It's growing your own food, but also relying on a little help from our friends, trading this for that, sharing seedlings, and seeds, and know-how.

It's about water: What sustains our animals, our crops, and us.

And it's about querencia: The way we are connected to a particular place and its landscape. It's home. And when you're away from it, you want to be there. And this is now our home.

I hope you've enjoyed following our lives for the past 10 years, watching us adjust to a new community, a different landscape, and a new way of life. 

But we are not disappearing. If you'd like to follow us on Instagram, look for @bridgetNM510 where we will still be posting about life here at The Nickel and Dime Ranch as well as any quilting shenanigans I might be getting into. Love, and cheers, and thanks for reading, 

Bridget and Tom

Sugar Sprint Peas

During the winter months I grow Sugar Snap peas in the growing dome because they like cool weather and unless it gets below freezing inside, they do well in there. Around May, though, it begins to get too hot inside and I must pull out the vines.

This year I decided to take my chances growing Sugar Snaps outdoors. I figured the moderate temps would be kind to them, so why the heck not. Because our weather is so "iffy," with snow, hail or rain likely any month of the year, I tried a variety called Sugar Sprint. The peas can be harvested at around 58 days, which is a plus in this high altitude growing region.

On May 9 I planted the seeds and placed a few tomato cages in the 4 by 4 bed, even though the envelope said 2 feet tall. I didn't want them drooping over the edges, tempting any passing critters into a snack. They might like that plant too much and that would be all she wrote. Then it rained and rained and I didn't even have to water.

I did a little weeding in that bed, but pretty much forgot those peas until July 4th, when I realized there were a zillion mature pods busting out on there! Talk about a forgetful gardener!

I've picked peas three times so far and each time I get about a pound of peas, enough to fill this strawberry clamshell.

My friends from around here get excited this time of year when roadside venders sell bags of traditional peas that you take out of the pod, but I am too lazy to shell them and just like eating the whole thing. It's the only way I can get Tom to eat peas.

Here are some links for snap pea recipes that I really like.

This is a copycat recipe for PF Chang's Garlic Snap Peas. The secret is to add the garlic at the end and very quickly get everything out of the pan and onto a plate. Otherwise you burn the garlic and it gets bitter when it's burned. Experience.

This recipe is easy! Ina Garten's Sauteed Sugar Snap Peas

Honey Glazed Pea Pods and Carrots is also an easy way to cook snap peas. I don't use the cornstarch and they still come out yum.

Last, because it's summer, here is Guy Fieri's Black Bean and Corn Salad recipe. I sub snap peas for the snow peas and it's just fine.

Miss Bonnie says hello to you all and wants you to know that rodent hunting is going well this year. She looks skinny, but eats all she wants. Last time Bonnie visited the vet, she (the vet) called her assistants (we are Bonnie's assistants) to have a good look at a cat at a healthy weight. I guess it's a rare sighting, a non-fat cat.

Bonnie is now 15 years old.

Kitchen Garden Early Summer 2015

Man, do I suck at blogging! It seems like there are so many other things to do..."Look! Squirrel!"

But I haven't forgotten you and hope this has been excellent summer season so far. Our part of Northern New Mexico has been blessed with rain, so much rain that we are out of our drought and the drought map says we are unusually dry, instead.

Tell that to the mosquitoes, who have been enjoying this moist weather just a little too much. Afternoons and shady spots are their favorite time for blood sucking, but if it's breezy they don't hang out too long, so I'm not complaining.

I've been working on are both the Growing Dome and kitchen gardens. The heat loving plants, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers, thrive in their warm dome house, but that story is for another day.

Anyway, here are some kitchen garden photos. I truly love the raised beds, which allow me to garden without crawling around.

Below are some Northeaster runner beans climbing up their netting. This is the first time I've grown these, but a neighbor had good luck with them and when I tasted their flat-podded wonderfulness, I decided they would be part of this year's garden.

You can see that black patch on the ground, which is weed barrier cloth. I need to spread some more bark to cover it.

The beds beyond the beans have strawberries, which are starting to bear, and asparagus in the background, now gone to seed after a couple weeks of judicious picking. The asparagus is three years old now, so next year I will be able to pick as much as we want. My friends say the rain has extended the wild asparagus crop along the roads and acequias, so they're still picking!

Below is another shot of the garden. On the left are white cauliflower, broccoli and garlic. Those grow bags contain potatoes: Magic Molly, Purple Viking, Sangre Red and Yukon Gold. Someone said the first three potato names sound like weed. I think they're right.

And here's the last shot. That long bed in the back has more cauliflower (green and orange varieties), carrots and corn. The corn is called Spring Treat, but we shall see what happens, since most people say sweet corn grown around here tastes like sawdust.

 

In the far beds, which each measure four by four, I have a rhubarb plant, some Sugar Sprint snap peas, a valerian plant which the bees love, and some more cauliflower. I've decided to roast cauliflower and freeze it if there's too much. We could use a little more outdoor growing space, so next year we hope to build some more raised beds.

Next up, inside The Dome.

Asparagus!

Of course, I could go foraging and find some wild asparagus like Betsy and I did last year, but we wanted something closer to home, so why not use those raised beds?

Here was the garden last year, around September:

Planting weather is just starting, and a couple months ago I ordered some Jersey Knight asparagus roots. I ordered two year old crowns, because asparagii must grow for several years before they are ready to harvest enough to amount to something.  (I have since learned that there is no advantage to ordering two year asparagus crowns, that one year one will do just fine.) Oh, well.

So on an overcast day in the 70's (woo hoo! it was hot out there!), I planted my asparagus crowns.

First I dug a trench and piled the dirt in our rickety wheelbarrow.

The wheelbarrow only tipped over once. 

Here is one of the asparagus crowns. They look very unassuming, don't they?

For each asparagus crown, I made a little mound of compost so it would have a nice spreading out place.

After that, I shoveled the soil back into the garden bed and added a top dressing of more compost. When some shoots appear, I think I will add some old dried cow manure to the bed. We have plenty of that around here.

Now the waiting begins. So I will water and fertilize and someday, in the not so distant future....

In the meantime, here is a link to a recipe for Cherry Tomato and Asparagus Salad which is amazingly good, and just the way to start the summer picnic season. We've had it twice now and even Mr. Picky likes it, minus the avocado.

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?