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!

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.

All Hail Summer!

Yesterday was a "weather" day at The Nickel and Dime Ranch, with crazy rain and hail.

While this was happening, I was having lunch with M and M in Santa Fe, on the way home from Albuquerque and the "didn't happen" Friday flight to California for my brother's retirement bash.

I ended up not going because Friday was a "weather day" in Dallas, disrupting flights, resulting in a nine hour wait for an airplane that wasn't going to take me where I wanted to go after all. At 2:30 am, faced with the prospect of waiting another eleven hours at the next stop offered to me by a harried, exhausted Southwest Airlines ticket agent, I gave up.

Sorry I missed your party, bro. All I can say is retirement is awesome and now you can work at whatever you want, whenever you want. Congratulations on surviving 32 years of adolescents.

I'd say, "Come visit," but looking at these photos, you might have second thoughts.

Ms. Pearl certainly had second thoughts, not even wanting to hang out on the covered porch while this was going on. Thunder, lightning and crazy noise on the tin roof were not her thing.

This is why my tomatoes are growing inside a greenhouse.

By the time I was home, all this was gone and today is sunny with nary a cloud in the sky. Still, there's a 50/50 chance for more rain today.

I think I'll go water the tomatoes.

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.

Even Though We Live Miles Away, We Are Neighbors

I laughed reading a friend's email yesterday because she looked forward to a neighborly gathering, and she lives 27.9 miles away, a 49 minute drive, according to Google maps. But yes, we are neighbors.

Our closest neighbor is half a mile away as the crow flies.  If one doesn't have wings and must drive or walk, it's closer to a mile.

Yesterday I visited a friend who lives about three miles down the road to pick up some carrots because she planted way too many. Since my carrots didn't do too well, I'm all for picking up some carrots. Earlier I gave her some garlic and she said I may have some pesto, too. Yum!

Here's our road. The road grader was here since our last rainstorm, so it looks good.

It's fun looking at our neighboring ranches. This one is around 1300 acres and has pines, cacti, and ferns: three different ecosystems at work.

 Friend Raye lives closer to the village with neighbors nearby.

Her house is adobe and the original structure was built in the early 1900's. That's Goldie, the almost fourteen year old Labrador.

               A smiling farmer out standing in her field, ready to dig. We barely made a dent in the row where Raye is standing, but I still ended up with plenty of carrots.

That's about five pounds of carrots, a zucchini, yellow squash and a lemon cucumber.

Goldie decided to cool off in the acequia, one of a series of water ditches that runs through many of the ranches in New Mexico.

Labradors and water equal fun!

We had some tea on the porch and Goldie had a few more pets. She's a happy oldster.

And then it was back toward home. Don't you love those clouds?

Now about those carrots: Stay tuned.

May Day 2014

Last week I was gardening and planting stuff and feeling just like this:

A spring snow, though, has put the outdoor gardening on hiatus for a day or two.

Sunrise Snow May 1, 2014

The snow is already melting (look at the wall in the above pic), but the big question is how is the broccoli I planted four days ago doing? And the apple blossoms? How are they? Is everyone out there okay? My Southern California self emerges, panic at any weather change, News at 11!

It looks like one more cold day and night and then temps will be rising. My optimistic New Mexico self says, "Thanks for the moisture and please, bring us more where that came from!"

Fall Already?

The past couple of weeks have reminded me that winter is coming. The yellow-flowered chamisa is the last of the allergens to bloom and I think this blooming schedule has been designed to make all the hay fever sufferers happy to see the first frosts and the last of their runny noses.

"Die, chamisa, die!"

The first frost was about a week and a half ago, killing the summer veggies, so goodbye to you,  tomatoes, peppers and green beans.

Since then we've had a few more nippy nights but the kale, carrots, cabbage and lettuce survive.  I planted too much cabbage and we are not sauerkraut fans, so cabbage soup is in the cards.

Next year the summer stuff will go in earlier since the raised beds are in place and ready to go.

Upcoming jobs: the dead plants are outta here and garlic goes in that empty bed in the foreground.

Plant garlic by Halloween; harvest it on Fourth of July. Sounds okay to me!

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?