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So Much to Do!
Greetings and welcome to the new subscribers!
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I'm going to get right down to business here. March is a busy time!
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CSA Shares for 2024
March 15 is just around the corner! Get your order in for your Spring Share before then!
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Spring Shares include broccoli, red and green cabbage, Swiss chard, butter and leaf lettuce, three kinds of kale, green onions, and spinach starts. New this year are herbs in 4" pots! The Renee's Garden Seeds Packet Bundle has carrots, beets, arugula, snow peas, sweet peas, radishes, bush beans, and sunflowers for direct seeding. Deadline March 15.
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Summer Shares include three kinds of tomatoes, peppers, basil, red and green leaf lettuce, zucchini, yellow squash, winter squash, cucumbers, eggplant, and lots of flowers. You can also order Swiss chard, kale, and cabbage for summer planting. Deadline April 15.
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I also have Renee's Garden Seeds Scatter Cans of California Poppies, Sunflowers, and Pollinator and Wildflower Gardens. You can get these at KOKO and Earthgoods, too.
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I have e-gift cards now, too! Easy peasy to choose a design, write a personal message, and have your gift delivered on the right day. Great for birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or any time you just want to let someone know you're thinking of them and their obsession.
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Spring Share lettuce starts. From this...
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Media
I interviewed with Cindy Brown of the Taos News to talk about all things gardening. We went over March garden tasks, buying starts and seeds (from me, of course! lol), farmers markets, and seed swaps and plant sales through the season. That list is always subject to change, so stay tuned here for updates. This interview will be in the March 14 issue.
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I'll be on KNCE, True Taos Radio with Howie and Jerry on Garden Talk, Monday March 18 at 7:40am to talk about the seed swaps and other spring garden happenings. Tune in at 93.5 FM.
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Events
Seeds swaps at the Ag Center on Chamisa Road:
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Thursday, March 21, 3:00-5:30 - Seed swap put on by the UNM Taos Sustainable Agriculture Class and open to the public. Our colleague and friend, Chuck Havlik, will be coming up from the Los Lunas Agricultural Science Center to do a presentation - Isolation Techniques for Saving Seeds: Thinking inside and outside of the box. He'll be discussing seed saving, collecting, cataloging, and examining suitable crops from similar and harsher climates that may thrive in Northern NM. For more info, contact Kevin Wittman, kwittman1@unm.edu.
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Saturday, March 23, 11:00-2:00 - Auntie Nannie's Seed Exchange Annual Seed Swap. Seeds galore and vendors! This is the round-up so far:
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- I'll be there with The Book, Renee's Garden Seeds Scatter Cans and Seed Packet bundles, and some succulents. Tim and Chris Boothby will be selling the little cacti, Cereus repandus, aka Peruvian Apple Cactus. It's taken a village with these babies!
- Iris Herbal will have herbal salves, essential oils, and goat milk soap.
- Casey Flynn will have succulents for indoor and outdoor planting as well as lettuce and spinach starts.
- Aaron and Miquela Mangum will have leather tool belts and other garden accessories.
If you miss Chuck's presentation on Thursday, we'll be showing his PowerPoint on Saturday. For more info, contact Sarah Schildknecht at sarah@taoslandtrust.org.
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With this seed swap, I will have officially handed the Taos Seed Exchange, renamed Auntie Nannie's Seed Exchange, over to capable hands. Sarah Schildknecht of the Taos Land Trust has done an incredible job of learning the complexities of seed exchange stations and seed swaps. She’s really bright, and I'm confident she'll run this successfully for years to come.
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I never thought the Taos Seed Exchange would fly. I was afraid to put the first station in place back in 2013, because no one had heard of seed exchanges or libraries before. I was sure it would fail and I’d be embarrassed to be seen in public. But to my surprise, it took on a life of its own, growing from seed exchange stations upcycled from USPS shipping boxes that I decorated with red duct tape and pictures from seed catalogs to one seed swap in 2014 to multiple seed swaps a year in spring and fall. Gardeners came to the swaps from as far as Saguache, CO and Albuquerque. And once I was at a seed exchange station in town when some tourists came in and got some seeds to plant back home. It became a phenomenon.
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I used to set up with a carload of starts every weekend in the spring, either at Re-threads or Pieces. When Earthgoods wanted to transition from hydroponics to in-ground growing, Casey, the manager before Jason, offered to host the seed swaps. He knew I could bring in the business he needed. Then he suggested a plant swap, and me and my little table of plants morphed into the huge Annual Spring Plant Sale, which is now a tradition for the community.
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All of this because of what seemed like a bird-brained idea 11 years ago.
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I hit my head in a fall in my greenhouse in 2018, and I had to cut back on stress. The seed exchange had to go so I could focus on starts, which has its own set of stressors. I didn't do anything with the seed exchange in 2019, then in 2020, the pandemic made it easy to further let go since activities were curtailed. Sarah and I have been working on this year’s seed happenings since last summer, and I’m thrilled with the way it’s panned out.
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Thanks for the love and support all these years. We built a beautiful community I’m proud of.
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Ok, enough waxing nostalgia.
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Saturday, April 27, 11:00-2:00 - Annual Spring Plant Sale at Earthgoods. This is weather-dependent, and our blizzard rescheduling date is May 4. As usual, Spring Shares will be available for pick-up around the same time. I'll announce that closer to the date.
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Friday, May 24 and 31 OR Saturday, May 25 - Instead of the usual May plant sale, I'm thinking of doing the Talpa Community Market on the 24th and 31st, the first two days they're open for the season. It's a ways out and there are a lot of variables in play, so a plant sale on the 25th hasn’t been ruled out. But the market is looking like a really good option. Stay tuned here for the final decision. Summer Share pick-ups will still be at the greenhouse around the same time, and there will be extras for sale as always.
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Auntie Nannie's Seed Exchange stations are now set up at these locations. Sarah did a great job with this! Thank you! Please support these businesses!
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- Talpa Community Center
- Taos Land Trust/Rio Fernando Park
- Re-Threads
- Not Forgotten Outreach
- Red Willow Center, Taos Pueblo
- Habitat Re-Store, El Prado
- Rael's Coffee Shop, Questa
- Questa Library
- Carson Cafe & Grocery
- The SPOT, Penasco
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This is the seed swap at the Taos Land Trust last fall. Look for a wooden box, like the one on the left, at Auntie Nannie's Seed Exchange locations.
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March Garden Tasks
It's hard to say what to do this month with this freakishly warm weather! I turned my compost piles early in the month. Normally they are frozen solid until the end of the March. When I checked for new growth in the perennial beds, the soil was warm under the mulch, and there was a lot of new growth on everything.
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Cut back your dead flower stalks and place them out of the way so overwintering insects can finish napping. Lay them on a brush pile or compost pile you're not going to disturb.
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As you see new growth, make maps of your gardens. I did this last week because I'd forgotten which trees were which! I've been known to weed out fall-planted perennials that I hadn't noted anywhere. Maps and photos are important info to have! Have I mentioned keeping a garden journal?! (Said in jest, because you know I have!)
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I know you're eager to plant, but don't. I always say, Look at the calendar, not the weather. The ground can be very wet still, and digging in it can ruin the structure. Good soil structure allows your plants' roots to breathe and absorb water and nutrients efficiently.
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The other side of that is that you may need to water things since it's been so dry. Get a moisture meter to determine how wet the soil is.
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Another factor when planting is soil temperature. If the soil is too cold, seed may not germinate. Planting in too-cold soil can shock the roots of transplants causing a setback and longer adjustment period and ultimately damaging the plant.
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Clean your ditch, test your soil, and start cool-weather plants! More details in The Book!
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The Book can be found at Earthgoods, Moxie, KOKO, Gutiz, Petree's Taos and Los Alamos, Buttercup Salon, Cid's, Taos Herb, Dixon Market, and of course from me. Please support the businesses that carry it! Thank you.
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The Book and me at the Annual Spring Plant Sale last year.
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