Lady Bugs, Gratitude and Mapple Cookies

Busy day at the ranch yesterday.  We started with turning both compost piles and mixing in more straw.  The recent heavy rains had made the piles too wet and stinky, attracting...flies.

We still had a variety of young plants that needed to get into flats.  We transplanted thyme, flax, bergamot, sorel and stinging nettle.

The kids got to enjoy watching the lady bugs "humping" as they said, as well as eat some delicious celery.

Our little ceremony of gratitude to the Earth.

A young thyme plants.

Thyme plants on a wet rag ready to be transplanted.

A young bergamot plant

A young flax plant.  Flax has amazing tap roots.

Amelie and Zelda the Mama turkey.

Poki multi-tasking....


Next Garden Party
Wed. August 31
3:00-6:00pm

Next Garden Party Sat 8/27 3:00-6:00pm

 

Come visit, bring the kids, meet interesting new people, watch trampoline aerials, check-out our thirty baby chicks, hug Swahili the Love Dog, transplant baby lettuce, sorel, thyme and chive, munch on fresh greens and savor fine cookies from Trader Joe's (or bring your own homemade ones!).

Our garden parties are offered to foster community building.  The gardening is just an excuse to get together...

Come at anytime between 3:00-6:00 pm.

NOTE: Around 4PM, we'll have a small ceremony to express our gratitude for the Earth for all she gives.

Bunnies and Lettuce

Today we transplanted hundreds of young lettuce, collard green and snapdragon. 

Our beds are full, many of them nursery beds.

Michael "closing" the soil around each young endive lettuce, using a fogger.

Michael transplanting "Merveilles des Quatres Saison" lettuce in a bed already containing young kale plants.

Coleman demonstrating one of his newest aerial tricks.

A surprise visit yesterday from our friend John Allen (left, founder of the Biosphere 2) and Kathelin Gray, member of the Institute of EcoTechnics.

Reminder- Garden Party Today Wed. 3:00-6:00pm

Garden Party Today 

Wed.  3:00-6:00pm

We'll continue to transplant lettuce, kale, flowers and herbs in nursery beds.

If you've never worked with tiny plants, come and watch, or better, participate, in this fascinating process. 

We need lots of hands to finish putting all the plants in the beds. 

If you wish to take a few baby lettuce home, please bring a rag.

Kids and cookies are always welcome...

Fairies and Chocolate Brownies

On a break from their trampoline activities, our resident fairies harvesting radishes for their afternoon snack...

Juaquin and Giselle

while the queen fairies get ready for their afternoon transplanting party (happy face brownie design by Amelie)

Empanadas made from purselane, mustard green and chard from the garden (courtesy of our hostess Giselle). 

 























Young lettuce are "lifted" from the wooden flat where they grew from seeds, and carefully placed onto a wet rag.  The rag is made into a bundle which is handed to the person who is transplanting. 

























Juaquin is seen here sprinkling Endo Maxima powder onto the soil before transplanting the young lettuce. 


 

Amelie transplanting "Merveilles des Quatres Saisons" lettuce.

The lettuce are transplanted into a "nursery bed" and will stay there for another two weeks.  After that they will be moved to other beds or other gardens (yours?).  After transplanting the young lettuce, the fogger is used to "close" the soil around the plants, making sure there are no air gaps around the roots of the plants.




Dandelion Ranch is now two months old.  We have created rich soil and planted a lot of plants.

The intention in initiating this project is severalfold:

• To inspire and support people to grow food in their backyard 
• To foster the building of community through garden parties, discussions and workshops 
• To develop a new style of community garden on private property 

Now that we have created a beautiful garden…

•    How do we figure out how to further activate community around it?
•    How do we make decisions that serve both the hosts and the community of gardeners?
•    How do we share the cost of water, seeds, tools, amendments, etc?
•    How is the harvest shared and extra plants distributed?
•    How far and wide do we promote the garden?
•    How do we schedule our garden parties so they work?
•    What kind of workshops do we organize to offset the cost of supplies?

Next week, Dan, Giselle (our hosts), Juaquin and Poki will be meeting to start reflecting on some of these questions.  After that, we'll be scheduling regular community meetings to engage all interested parties to help co-create a formula for this fast-evolving urban farm.

If you wish to make suggestions, you can use the comment section below, or send your ideas to your devoted garden coordinator at: poki@nodilus.com  

NOTE:

• We have a lot of salad starters.  If you wish to take a few for your garden, please make an appointment with Poki.  

• Next Garden Party  

Wednesday August 24 

3:00-6:00pm

Special Event Friday, August 26, 7-9pm - The Power of Local Food with Joel Salatin

Click on image to go to Carbon Economy Series website

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Friday, August 26, 7-9pm

at the NM School for the Deaf, James A. Little Theatre

 Joel Salatin on Local Food

Farmer, author, lecturer and local-food guru Joel Salatin will be with us for two events later this month.  Joel Salatin is a strong advocate of local organic food, food sovereignty, transparancy in production and food security.  Joel has been featured in The Ominvore's Dilemma, Food Inc, Fresh and has authored several books including Everything I Want to Do is Illegal.  He owns and operates Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley which was described in The Atlantic as a "mecca of sustainable agriculture."

Building Local Food Systems

Joel Salatin's "Building a Local Food System" will be followed by a panel discussion with Mr. Salatin and Tom Delehanty of the Pollo Real Farm in Socorro, NM.

• Tickets: $10 at carboneconomyseries.com

Weeds, Lettuce and Potatoe Chips

After 6 weeks of letting weeds (amaranth and purselane) grow to build soil and strengthen the beds, it was time to harvest them and make room for new plants.  The weeds are cut with scissors and the roots are left in the beds so as to not disturb the soil, as well as leave organic matter in the beds.

In 4 hours we harvested 150lbs of perfect food...

...but most of it went to the compost pile for lack of takers.  Bobbe took purselane home and made Pesto with basil, cilantro and garlic (recipe here).

Juaquin had brought several varieties of lettuce

and showed everyone how to properly transplant them.

























All the kids joyfully helped planting,

and harvested radishes for dinner.

Our eggplants are growing,

and so is the Love between the gardeners.

Poki using a "fogger" to water young seedlings.

and telling Valerie how to cook purselane with scrambled eggs and chiles.

Dan having a little salt with his lettuce.

What a wonderful afternoon we all had!  Five new visitors came; Bobbe, Alexanna, Piper, Andy and his child.  With the kids, we had a total of 13 gardeners this afternoon.

Juaquin is magnificent with kids.  He's engaging, patient and makes gardening fun for the children.  If you have young children or teenagers, bring them with you to our next garden party:

Saturday, August 20

3:00-6:00pm

We'll be planting more lettuce and kale, as well as transplanting herbs. 

Next Garden Party Wed. August 17 - 3:00-6:00pm

Young plants in hoop house

 Juaquin is back from Colorado and will be at the garden party. 

Our beds are full so we'll be weeding and thinning.  Bring a bag if you want to take amaranth and purslane home.  There is plenty for everyone!

We'll be planning our fall crop as we have hundreds of young plants in the hoop house (kale, lettuce, herbs and flowers) that we started from seeds 3 weeks ago.

We'll also continue to transplant young seedlings.

As you may know, we started this garden from scratch on June 26.  Our focus was to first and foremost build the soil and our beds were planted with a varieties of plants from our friends' farm in Colorado (basil, eggplant, tomato, pepper, parsley, celery). 

On Wed. we'll be looking at the results of our first wave of efforts.

The beautiful weeds that grew in those beds have strengthened the soil.  Our beds are healthy and ready to receive our fall crop.

As always come with your questions, passion, curiosity and willingness to participate in this lovely urban farm experiment (did I say bring cookies?)

Strawberries, Cedar Flats and Turkey Poop

Cole, Louis and Bo helped transplant wild strawberries today.

Cole getting arroyo soil for the strawberry bed.

We also built 6 more cedar flats for tomorrow's transplanting party so we now have 8 available flats for transplanting lettuce, kale and flowers.
It would be great if we got lots of help tomorrow Sat. 3:00-6:00pm.  If you've never transplanted very young seedlings (2 weeks old!), it's super cool.
This French-intensive technique allows you to grow a large number of plants in a very small space.



 

Next Garden Party

Tomorrow Sat. August 13 

3:00-6:00pm

Time to Transplant for the Fall Crop- Next Garden Party Sat. August 13, 3:00-6:00pm

Brooke, Noah and Michael learning how to transplant lettuce seedlings.

Last Wednesday we began transplanting the hundreds of salad and kale seedlings that we have in our seed flats.

On Saturday, we'll continue that process, part of the French-intensive method of gardening.  We have several varieties of lettuce, kale, flowers and herbs.

If you want to take some seedlings home with you, bring pots and some good planting soils.

and... bring some good cookies as well.

In addition to 200 salad seedlings transplanted in flats, 160 kale plants were also transplanted in a nursery bed.