Paradise is a Garden

I find being outside right now is nearly irresistible.  Last weekend with the arrival of this deliciously sunny yet still cool weather, while I was rediscovering my yard I also rediscovered the pleasure and satisfaction I get from pottering around in it.

However the best thing about pottering around in gardens is that it stops the mind chatter, the constant checking and rechecking of those mental to-do lists. It all just falls away as you get absorbed in your task.  So gardening can be an antidote to modern life. What could be more of a paradise than a garden that also provides nutritious food and treats?

Recently my husband and I (along with the Worm Woman and her husband) went to Douglas High School to judge videos made by Paula Beacom’s science honor students.  We have been working with her classes for a year and arranged for field trips to two organic backyard gardens in Sierra Vista and a small organic farm and orchard in Cochise.

With funding from a Cochise County Health Department grant, Paula and her students built three raised beds, filling them with vegetables and started a compost pile in the school’s large fenced land lab.  The videos were supposed to be promotional to portray their garden, (demonstrating their knowledge of organic methods), and their dreams for it.

Paula named her school garden project the Paradise  Garden. Most of the students’ videos had clips of other blooming gardens elsewhere or pleas for help turning their beginning beds in the rather overgrown and neglected setting into a Paradise.  

Calling all gardeners in Douglas! Paula and her eager and enthusiastic students need the community’s help to transform the land lab.  This is a great facility with tremendous potential. Anyone interested in volunteering or providing materials for the class compost bin please contact Paula at pbeacom@dusd.k12.az.us.    

Most of us have grown up with the story of Adam and Eve and the knowledge that they were expelled from the Garden of Eden.  Perhaps we all yearn to get back there or recreate it. I am determined this year to start on my own private paradise and transform my yard which has a lot of zero scape. You know where great expanses are covered with plastic and rocks so that walking is difficult and then planted with a hodgepodge selection of mostly non-native, non food-producing plants.

The tough parts here in the desert are the dryness, the hard, rocky soils, and all the critters that want to share anything you grow.

I am not an expert. (For my degree in horticulture from the University of Hawaii’s College of Tropical  Agriculture I studied sugarcane and pineapple production.) However I am a good copier.  I have visited several backyard food-producing paradises that other people have created here in Sierra Vista. Several of these will again be open to the public for the Summer Organic Garden Tour on Sunday, August 24.  (Check the calendar at www.BajaAZ.org for more information.)

In the meantime there are a couple of books that provide expertise and inspiration.  One of them is “Extreme Gardening, How to Grow Organic in the Hostile

Deserts” by the  Garden Guy Dave Owens.  Although this garden guy lives in Phoenix and some of the stuff he recommends is strictly for the low desert, most is applicable here with a little adjustment in timing.  I figure if he can create a paradise in Phoenix, which I consider a lot more like that place that’s heaven’s opposite, then his techniques will also work here.

The Garden Guy who has a weekly TV show now also has a sequel book, “The Garden Guy:  A Seasonal Guide to Organic Gardening the in Desert Southwest.

His first book is full of practical advice with sections on 29 different vegetables, (how to choose varieties, plant, water, fertilize, care for and protect) along with

14 fruits and nuts. Also included are sections on organic pest and animal control, watering, desert soils, making compost and worm bins. He includes designs for spring, summer, fall and winter gardens in raised beds with trellis.

But best of all are his sprinkles of philosophy.  “We can create balanced microcosms that reflect the natural world.  We can get birds, insects, lizards, toads and snakes to work on our behalf.  We can nurture plant life and promote beauty and sustenance in our own living spaces.  A vibrant garden is an interactive, diverse environment, not an unhealthy mishmash of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.”  

Owens recommends deep and infrequent watering and testing with a soil probe which you can make from a 4 foot piece of rebar that you bend  90 degrees at one end to form a handle and mark at one foot intervals with tape or paint. (If adequately wet, the probe should sink down 12 to 18 inches for vegetables and flowers and two to three feet for trees.)  Keep a deep layer of mulch (6 to 8 inches) around plants to reduce water usage.

In a couple of weeks I will write about another book by high desert expert grower, Jim Koweek.  He is one of the local authors to be featured in the Author’s

Tent doing book signings as part of the Earth Day Celebration at the Sierra Vista Farmers Market on Saturday, April 19.

If you start growing food and find you have more than you and your neighbors can eat, remember you can always bring extra produce to the farmers markets.

At the Sierra Vista Farmers Market backyard growers are always welcome to sell at the tables provided or to consign it to the market to sell.  Backyard

growers in Bisbee can contact market manager, Laura Smith at 227-5060 or laura.haba@gmail.com about selling extra produce at the Bisbee Farmers Market which starts on April 26.

This Week at the Sierra Vista Farmers Market

Greens:   At the Backyard Growers Table Worm Woman, Judy Goodenough, will offer bags of baby lettuces (red & green romaine, butter crunch & red & green leaf), spring green onions (scallions) and freshly picked thyme & oregano.  All fertilized with the help of her thousands of wriggly workers.  Jim Woodruf will have pecans and Swiss chard.

Farmer Stewart Loew will bring mesclun mix, spring mix and arugala for salads as well as kale and various members of the bok choy family such a tatsoi and joi choi great for steaming, stir-frying, adding to soups and omelets.  He also offers white and brown tepary beans grown on the San Xavier Indian Reservation near Tucson, two kinds of organic dates and pumpkin and apple butters. 

Grammy’s Garden will bring Picacho watermelons along with lots of unsprayed local produce including heirloom tomatoes and certified organic tropical produce from Mexico. Look for De Cio pasta and local pinto beans. 

 The Simmons Family will sell all their honey varieties including favorites, Mesquite and Desert Wildflower.

Also offered are cut comb honey and raw

creamed honey in the tub. Need a honey to sweeten herbal tea? Try Catclaw Honey with its mild flavor. The family makes many varieties of beeswax candles

and 7 oz. beeswax bricks for folks that need beeswax for making their own soaps, balms, candles and salves. To order honey by the gallon please call or

e-mail ahead (520.364-2745 or simmonshoney1@wmconnect.com.) Back in stock:  Zucchini Pickles and Relish as well as Three Berry Jam, Black Berry jam

and Raspberry Mango Jam. For spring allergies try bee pollen which many find reduces symptoms.

Welcome back to Barbara Wiley aka the Jam Lady who makes an enticing array of home-style jams from organic fruits and berries.  She also has several

no-sugar-added jams.  Spring specials are Lime-Kwat and Orange Marmalades made with Arizona citrus.  Barbara creates lots of syrups such as Prickly Pear

syrup, great for prickly pear lemonade as well as topping pancake and Blue syrup for smoothies.  She also produces pickles and BBQ sauces for afternoon

cook outs.  Try her new Prickly Pear BBQ sauce.

Nathan Watkins of San Ysidro Farm just got back from a trip to Virginia where he went to a small D.C. farmers market which had 5 meat vendors. He

reports that his prices for grass-fed and pastured meats and eggs are really reasonable compared to theirs.  I am using my solar oven daily to roast one of his

pork roasts or some lamb chops or one of Josh’s pastured chickens.  (Stop by the information booth to find out about buying a Sun Oven at a great discount.)

Max McCarty will bring wild salmon, halibut and seafood including Copper River red salmon chunks.  They need no prep and are very affordable,

letting you use the very best salmon for everyday recipes. His booth partner the Mama Llama lady offers frozen meat and dessert “take and

bake” empanadas as well as a new vegetarian offering and a breakfast brunch variety full of cage-free eggs, cheese, green chiles and salsa.

For hardy desert ornamental plants Joe Moran will return with his truck full of assorted decorative cactus from Hereford’s Little River Nursery, including

purple Santa Rita and Bunny Ears Prickly Pears.

New this week from the In the Garden Nursery is 4” African Basil.  Full grown the plant becomes a fairly large ornamental bush that is a great pest deterrent.  Also available are regular basil, oregano and Mexican oregano, rosemary, sweet marjoram, chamomile, spearmint, peppermint, orange mint, pineapple sage, lemon grass, winter savory, calendula, Echinacea, valerian, yerba manza, rue, epazote, and catnip.

Vegetable starts include lettuce, lettuce bowl, cilantro, tomatillo, jalapeno, and Tom Thumb pea. Tomato varieties are Marmande (a nice European juicer), Campbell’s (this variety started the Campbell’s Soup Co.’s  business), yellow pear tomato and cherry tomato.  The smaller varieties do better in the Arizona heat.

The Master Gardeners are back with their information booth. Stop by to ask gardening questions, sign up for their free newsletter and pick up helpful brochures.

Help to bring a natural foods store (that will also sell local food) to town by becoming a member of the Sierra  Vista (Co-op) Market. Stop by its

booth to sign up, pick up membership bags or a copy of its informative spring newsletter, “The Scoop.”

Also at the market: Azmira holistic pet food and products, Dr. Hummus, Next Door Kitchen’s home-style meals, breads and cookies, Arizona Cactus Ranch, Just Coffee, Dragoon Marketplace, Arizona Chia, Adventure Coffee, local pecans, Coyote Corners Eggs, Desert Oasis Soaps, Fiesta Growers (wide variety of vegetable and herb starts for the garden.)

Recipes

Mesclun/Baby Greens Salad

(adapted from The Garden of Eating by Rachel Albert-Matesz)

8 cups baby spring greens or mesclun, washed and spun dry

1 cup minced scallions or parsley leaves, thinly sliced celery or edible flowers

? cup Poppy Seed-Pineapple Drizzle Dressing

Top salad greens with sliced or minced vegetables in 3 quart bowl.  Drizzle salad with dressing and toss to coat.  Serve immediately.

Poppy Seed-Pineapple Drizzle

4 cups pineapple juice

? tsp sea salt

3 to 4 tblsp poppy seeds

2 tsp minced fresh sage leaves or ? tsp dried rubbed sage, optional

? tsp black pepper

1 ? tblsp arrowroot powder dissolved in 3 tblsp cool water

? cup extra-virgin flax oil or combination flax and sesame oil

3 drops vitamin E oil from a capsule

1 tsp apple fiber powder, optional

1 tblsp Dijon mustard

Bring juice and salt to boil in 2-qt. saucepan.  Add poppy seeds, sage and pepper.  Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered until thick and reduce by one-half, 30 to 45 minutes.  Add dissolved arrowroot and stir over medium-low heat until thick and clear, about 4 minutes.  Cool at room temp or refrigerate at least 1 to 2 hours.  Whisk in flax oil, vitamin E and mustard.  Pour into bottles, label and refrigerate.  Use within 3 weeks or freeze in 1 or 2 canning jars with 1 inch of headspace.

Mesclun Green & Pear Salad with Toasted Pecans

Top salad greens with 1 cup of edible flowers, 2 peeled, cored and thinly sliced ripe, but firm, bosc, bartlett or anjou pears, freshly ground pepper, ? cup lightly toasted pecans and dressing.