Hi,

I moved to Silver City in June of 2006 from Port Townsend in Puget Sound - where if you drop it on the ground it takes root and bears fruit within 24 hours (only a slight exaggeration) - and there was literally an eleven and a half month growing season there! Boy, what a change this is to do high desert gardening - I am actually having to develop some gardening skills!

I bought a sixplex (for a B&B), as well as a triplex here. The sixplex only had gravel over weed cloth (which of course killed any microbes that may have been in the very poor alkali soil here) with one or two yuccas.

What I do know about gardening around Silver City and high desert gardening in general is that the best thing you can do is start amending your soil with as much compost as you can get your hands on. I hear from gardeners here that alpaca manure is a great amendment and I think there are pretty popular around he state. The nice things about alpacas is that they use the same are, so collecting their manure is a one stop effort.

Here's a link to a pretty impressive high desert garden here in NM(I think it may be around Los Alamos):

http://www.avant-gardening.com/index.html

I have found several NM gardening books which I think are helpful.

So far, here's what I've done at both properties.

I took up the weed cloth and moved the gravel to the driveway. I have planted a variety of plants in the ground here - again very alkali, poor soil, so I amended it with about 1/3 commercial organic planting compost to 2/3s soil. Then I used bought commercial organic composted bark mulch and applied that liberally - about three inches everywhere. The composted bark mulch breaks down and further amends the soil, as well as inhibiting weeds. Ornamental bark mulch,the kind with the big chips, actually robs your soil of nitrogen.

These plants have done very well here in Silver City in the amended and mulched ground soil: butterfly bushes; lots of different salvias; some ground cover geraniums; also catmint, artimesia, creeping and woolly thyme also for ground covers; a couple of varieties of honeysuckles; lots of agaves (since my B&B is being renamed Adobe Agave); a native bed of winterfat and apache plumes with yuccas; several desert willows and Birds of Paradise bushes; lots of different, assorted sages; some roses: an assortments of herbs; a number of penstemons; and a number of other native plants that I can't recall the names of offhand.

I concentrated on planting things that were fragrant for the guest as they walk into their units, and most especially things that flower (which most of the listed plants above do) and would attract bees and other beneficial insects.

I had lots and lots of honey bees, as well as those little garden wasps. Lots of people complained last growing season here that they had no bees here and they couldn't believe I had so many when they visited my gardens. But I did plant for bees/beneficial insects, and wildlife. So you might try planting anything native that blooms in your area, as well as plants like hummingbird bushs, etc. The bees seem to really like catmint as well as many of the salvias I planted -but especially the catmint - and catmint is a hardy perennial and super easy to grow (spreads well, etc.) Oh yes, I also planted some blooming sedums and the bees like that a lot too.

However, I have done all my vegetable gardening in containers thus far, with very mixed results. I used containers because I still haven't set up any beds for veggies, and I used commercial organic potting soil. But I am thinking that this spring I that I will try just amending the immediate growing area for the veggies and plant directly in the ground, interspersed with the landscaping plants. I did that a lot in Puget Sound, and since so many vegetables are beautiful plants it makes for all the more beautiful a garden.

This growing season I am going to try containers again as well as planting in the ground,amending as I did for the landscape plants and see how it goes. Much better I hope because I really miss garden fresh veggies!

Oh yes - I garden organically, so I do companion planting. I have never had a problem with bugs here or in Port Townsend. I think this is because the companion plants have always attracted lots of beneficial insects, which has taken care of whatever non-beneficial insect problem I may have had.

If you are interested in some helpful regional/NM gardening books, etc. that I think may be helpful, let me know and I will send you those titles.

Good luck this spring!

Ellen

Thanks for the tips, eco1st.

A couple of book titles would be great. I noticed that most of the "gardening" category information on the net is not very in-depth at all and mostly technically void for a true novice.

Even the extension services don't have simple sowing, care and feeding instruction for gardeners regarding individual plant types. Do you know of a resource that covers individual plant types and their care and requirements, in-depth? I have been looking and the only thing i've found is "root developement of vegetable crops at the gutenberg project. I can't begin to imagine how to build a habitat for a plant without really knowing the plant. I'd like to grow squash and sweet potatoes and maybe tomatoes this year. That's pretty much my goal. of course I usually throw some beans around just for kicks (sorted soup mix).

Hello! I live at an elevation of about 5000 feet in central NM. If I were you, I'd create a fenced plot now and work on soil amendment. That way the microbes (soil ecosystem) will have a chance to establish before you plant.

Bear in mind that fresh manure takes awhile to decompose. I built two raised beds and used horse manure my first year here. I allowed three months for decomposition before planting. Nothing did well in those two raised beds until the following year.

I use heavy gauge five foot tall wire fencing affixed on metal poles to keep dogs out of my produce graden. I placed logs around the bottom, so dogs cannot dig under. I like the rustic look the logs give the fenced area. I created a simple gate by bending three feet of wire back on itself, so it was doubled and more sturdy. Had to tie it shut with rope.

Peat moss changes the Ph of the soil, acidifies. It also greatly improves the soil's ability to hold water. Kelp fertilizer is good stuff. There are plants which repell insects. Santolina is my favorite. It is a small, evergreen, flowering bush.

I don't think small stones are necessarily a problem. Clear some of them out, but you don't have to get rid of all of them. If your soil is clay, the stones will assist with water drainage. I would pick a planting area which has some shade during the day, because the hot summer sun is murder on produce plants. When the temp is 100 degrees day after day, no amount of watering is going to keep produce plants from being stunted, or from dying, if they are in 100% direct sun.

You can look up the "Three Sisters" Native American method of planting beans, corn and squash. They are companion plants and do well planted together.
] Building a garden is a process. Each year your garden and your success will improve. I would not put seeds into the ground sooner than the last week of April because of late frosts, unless the seeds are started in cold frames. Planting flowering plants in the vicinity of your produce plot, or interspersed with the produce, will bring natural pollenators.

My first two years in this area, I rarely saw bees. Except for the swarm which visited my old apricot tree when it went into bloom. I have put in a lot of native flowering plants. Now, five years, there were a lot of bees in the yard every day of the previous growing season. I was surprised to discover that the very large bumble bees are rather aggresive, when disturbed!