Raised Beds!

So it all started with a hole dug with no real plan....

 Then my dad visited and soon after, I got this in my inbox. It came after a lengthy trip to Lowe's to show me what bags of manure, peat, etc. to buy, and where the wood is, what wood to buy, etc. The Lowe's trip came with a $100 Lowe's Gift Card, which we just used up yesterday.

I also got a box of screws and brackets from the diagram. Awesome!

M and I got to work in the evening building the frame. (Actually, M did the work. I just held stuff together and listened to him cuss when he bloodied his hands. Whoever says gardening isn't hard hasn't tried to build a raised bed....) We got the frame laid out as the sun went down.

It seems that we were overzealous in our digging and only really needed half of the plot we dug up. Que sera, sera...

Luckily, we were working in the yard that day and noticed a pool of water in the corner by a faucet. A pool in the desert is always cause for concern so M went under the house to check for leaks. Yes, UNDER the HOUSE!

There was no leak in the house and we discovered it was a hole in the pipe beneath the ground. So good news is we got it fixed. Bad news is there's a freaky crawl space beneath my house! This has the making of a great scary movie. (no worries though, my boobs aren't big enough to star in a scary movie so we're gonna be ok)

Last Tuesday morning I woke up to very cold weather, which in my mind was perfect for filling the bed in with all the displaced earth.

Bring it on, Cold Weather!

Raised bed with a dad-approved ratio of soil-to-manure-to-peat moss mixture

Oh! and the container herbs are doing good too!

From bottom to Top - Scallions, Garlic, Spinach, and Spinach... there's also a tiny
wild cilantro in there somewhere

Kristi's Organic Garden

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest of places... This was a drawing my dad posted last spring on Facebook. (note the hiking boots)

Slightly political, slightly sarcastic, totally awesome!

Although I do wonder what a 'non-vegan' garden would look like? Leatherface's backyard?

Ground Has Been Broken....

So an update on moving in with M....

I've given my apartment complex notice and will officially be a non-El Paso resident as of the end of March! Yay!

Also - I've broken ground on our new in-the-ground garden. We will still use containers in winter and for big stuff like potatoes and tomatoes. But! The in-the-ground garden signifies me being in Carlsbad permanently as I've promised M he won't have to do any weeding.

Now - in my mind, I'd like my garden to be something similar to the White House Kitchen Garden and reading "American Grown" isn't helping.

Caution! Contents cause serious garden envy

My Happy Place

Whenever I'm stressed, sad, bored, or lonely, I think of my happy place. We all have one. That special place in the world - real or imaginary - where everything is right.

My happy place is southeast Utah. I spent many months living in SE Utah, at both Capitol Reef & Canyonlands national parks. This isn't my happy place because I was happiest there. No, in fact sometimes I was downright miserable & making the best of a poor situation. However, SE Utah was always there to soothe me, refresh me, & rejuvenate my soul.

When I think of SE Utah, I remember the following:

- the redness of the Wingate sandstone against the white Navajo sandstone & impossibly blue skies
- breath-taking vistas as far as the eye can see of mostly unpopulated areas
- the smell of pinion pine ( my soul aches every time I smell a pinion tree)
- the sound wind makes as it soars across, through, beneath, & between the fantastic rock formations of the region
- the feel of the sun soaking into my sink, just as it soaks it the rocks I walk upon
- the indescribable feeling of being alone & completely at home in the Utah wilderness
- canyon wrens
- the ability to 4-wheel drive & camp across most of the area & rarely see another vehicle
- 8 national park areas within a days drive. Yes- EIGHT!
- The ever- constant feeling of walking in an ancient civilizations' footsteps
- the tingly spidey- sense I get when petroglyphs & pictographs are near

I cannot wait to share my happy place with M. I know he'll love it as much as I do.

Where is your happy place? If you don't have one, feel free to share mine.

McKittrick Canyon in Fall Color; a Texas Tradition

I spent my Veteran's Day hiking in Guadalupe Mountains NP with M and his two boys. The weather was absolutely perfect! 70 degrees, sunny, slight breeze.... Amazing day. The fall colors were too beautiful for words, so here's a photo essay.

View of McKittrick from the visitor center

The big rock on top-right is the ancient reef, the cliffs to the left are part of the back reef

1st sight of COLOR!

And then it got amazing!!!!

E poses on a rock... This happened alot.

The ever-necessary selfie

The canyon flooded in September. The trail crew spent a month busting ass to get it into great shape!

Tarantula! So cute!

Pratt Cabin is a perfect summer home

The Texas Madrones are huge in here!

I love the madrone bark. It looks like dripping paint

I tested out my new waterproof trail-rated camera. Look at the tiny fish!

Video of the camera's first dunking - sorry its sideways... cold water!

Look at the flood debris! This was at least 2.5 miles up the canyon

The most fantastic lighting is fall color lighting

More rocks to climb....

A doesn't climb rocks; he sleeps on them

End of the line - Hunters Cabin just past the Grotto!
Fantastic, highly recommended hike!

For more info on Guadalupe Mtns NP, check out their website!

Our Fall Garden

I've learned a few lessons from gardening this summer... Apparently, summers in southern New Mexico are just too damned hot and sunny for most of the plants.

1. Potatoes won't grow if its above 85 degrees.... shocking for a crop that notoriously grows in Ireland (and of course, down here it doesn't go below 85 until mid-September) 
2. Tomatoes also don't like the heat and won't flower - now that the temps have dropped, they're flowering like crazy and hopefully we'll get some tomatoes before the first frost
3. My shade structure is NO MATCH for the monsoon winds that whip across the Guadalupes
4. All of our herbs prefer the shady area beneath the overhanging vines on the fence... Less sun means cooler, happier herbs
5. Apparently, starting seeds in the spring around here means January/February...
6. People who plant their gardens in the front yard are just showing off
7. Mint spreads and can eventually take over the earth....
8. Cilantro loves to be neglected and left alone... possibly an introvert plant?
9. If you plant a container garden, you MUST make sure there are holes for drainage. Things die and get stinky quick!

So far this fall I've planted scallions, which are coming up quickly, and broccoli, which will need some sort of cover to protect it from the evil white cutworm moth.

I've also been testing a few different gardening apps -

web-based Sprout It wins... It keeps track of my garden, when I plant things, when they pass a growing phase, when to harvest, and the daily weather. It only gives you garden options that "should" grow in your climate so if you're growing something else, it won't show up.

iphone-based Garden Tracker is ok - you make your own plots, plant whatever you want, and keep track of when you water, feed, etc. Its cool for help when something is sick or dying, but that's about it. If it would send you reminders of what to do and when, like Sprout It, it would rule!

Will They Survive the Heat? no! the Cold!

My newest package of seeds came in the mail yesterday!

I want to get a jump start on my spring planting so I went ahead and ordered now. Basil, roma-esque tomatoes, mark twain heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos for M, and we will again attempt green beans.  This year I'll start the seeds in January/February. Stay tuned for more adventurous gardening attempts.

But have no fear, I am also attempting winter gardening. Carlsbad is in the southern half of the US, but gets some good snow and cold, so I'll try some quick growing stuff, and some plants that like to overwinter. Scallions, spinach, and broccoli. Yes, I'm attempting broccoli again but this time I'll cover the plants with pantyhose in an attempt to thwart the evil white moth that lays worm eggs all over my crops.

Keep you posted!

Summer Gardening is Ending... But Have No Fear, Fall Gardening is Underway!

The last time we talked it was the end of April (officially the beginning of the summer in the Southwest), and my garden was gearing up to survive the heat... (To Recap).

Sadly, the broccoli didn't survive the cabbage worm infestation and the heat. Next time I'll try a cover - maybe pantyhose cut and stretched out across the top of the contained will stop the evil cabbage moths from propagating all over my broccoli greens.

We harvested both bins of potatoes, and learned a harsh lesson. When page 173 of your Moosewood Gardening bible tells you that potatoes will not grow in temps higher than 85 degrees, it most definitely means they won't grow in 110 degrees!

harvesting potatoes

Look at the mighty growth!

So we did get a few goods sized ones early in the summer

M marveling at our bountiful harvest   j/k

The bell pepper plant finally started to really grow, only to be knocked down by several windstorms. I'll have to work on a windscreen for next year. (The shade structure also didn't do well in the windstorms. shocking, i know, since it was an example of such fine craftsmanship.)

We are managing to get a few bell peppers after I enclosed the thing in a cage. Used a few last night and they were delicious!

Our two tomato plants are either getting too much water, not enough water, or both and don't like the wild watering swings... But, we are getting a few tomatoes! Some of them had blossom-end rot. I found a DIY recipe that calls for salt... Salt! (*Epsom salt to be exact - see note at bottom...) So now our tomatoes are getting salted each week and the rot is happening less frequently.

 We moved the herbs to a more sheltered location, underneath a heavily shaded shrub area. They are doing fantastic!

Thai basil that looks and smells fantastic

Rosemary and mint are doing great - the green bucket has cilantro...

seriously, i just threw cilantro seeds into the potato bin and moved it
out of the way

We cannot stop growing sage! Every other week I harvest half and
take it home, and when I come back... more sage!

In other parts of the backyard, the wild things are going crazy in this mild temperature monsoon season.

lantana comes back year after year and looks great!

This thing, which i honestly thought might be weed
and began googling pictures of weed leaves (shout-out to
NSA!), turns out to be NOT WEED. I can't remember
what it is, M can, but its NOT WEED.

wild and crazy yard

what the hell is this? internet! i need your help.

close-up of the i-have-no-idea plant..
perennial, full sun

Winnie scouts for pecans

She's so freaking cute!

So fall planting is coming up in a month or so... Broccoli (with pantyhose covering), garlic, sweet onions, spinach, and green beans.... The garlic grows best over winter and we can harvest in spring. The spinach loves cool weather. The green beans I'm not sure about but I have seeds!

*Regarding the salting of plants to stop blossom-rot. Turns out I just found out that Epsom salt isn't table salt... So maybe I'm killing my tomatoes with a little NaCl when I should be using MgSO4!