2010 Photo Wrap Up

Honestly, this vegetable is the only one that looks better than it tastes. Enjoy the photo, cuz I don't think I'm growing them again.

After downloading 600+ photos from the last 5 months of 2010, I felt I had to add 17 more photos to this blog even though I've already posted the 'last' post. After selling and growing vegetables, the next two most difficult things were taking pictures of everything as 'real' farm work needed to be done, and then later posting and writing about them; the latter two at times seemed superfluous. Please enjoy.

Even if I hadn't made a dime selling vegetables this year, growing food for family, friends, and Gallupians is figuratively the pot gold at the end of the rainbow. Thank You and God Bless!

My farmers' market table, nearing the end of the season

Northern pickling cucumber harvest next to the endless beet bed

Navajo Copper Popcorn grown from seeds purchased from Native Seeds SEARCH. I've never seen this corn for sale at the Gallup Flea Market (many Hopi and Navajo flint varieties are sold there), and none of my Navajo friends have heard it, but it pops into the most platinum blond popped corn you've ever seen. The plants were about 4' tall with two ears each. Corn borer worm damage is a good sign of organic production.

3-year old Chinook Hop rhizomes flowering and ready for harvest

Celebrity tomatoes

Tomatoes, wire, t-posts, and warming water barrels with their polyester cloak of Agribon row-cover fabric pulled back for harvest. This double 60' row, produced 300 lbs. of celebrity, roma, and cherry tomatoes.

Broccoli is a budding yellow flower, and unharvested, they provide the last pollen bees can find very late into the fall. I couldn't find it in myself to pull these frost hardy plants late into October, as they buzzed with black and yellow everyday, after noon.

Basil hugging Gallup bricks. Perhaps it knows that the pesto blender is near.

Hawking veggies in the late afternoon after the last Gallup Farmers' Market, at half of the market price; neigbours and friends got them for free. Rio stood guard, literally; he had put in the house. I made $300 selling vegetables that day, and was thoroughly sunburnt. The season was over.

The rare and super tasty White King Bolete, an edible wild Porcini of the western forests. DO NOT, DO NOT collect wild mushrooms based upon these photos alone. I learned from a mycologist of several decades.

Not all food grows in gardens, some fly's wild above them. New Mexico Mourning Dove, September 2010

More tomatoes to blanch, then can. I canned half of my 300# harvest, ate or sold the rest.

A huge 'wild' radish found downstream of my gardens in a neighbors sandy garden in a 6 cu. foot wheelbarrow. It was huge, and then chicken food.

Nov 28 harvested ugly carrot line-up, pretty ones went to mom and the neighbors.

Nov 29, the last day of gardening, now I'm farming; cutting the rib from collard greens, the hardiest of all winter greens!

late season vegetables

Brussel sprouts

The rows of corn, chile, and tomatoes have now been reduced to the rusty orange, tan, and red hues common to our sandstone and coal formations around here, and common to both I guess, they speak to a prior era of lush green growth. Each day now, the more recent palate of those colors sheds a few more rattling dry leaves and reveals the scaly dark stems to the fall winds. A few chile that had matured enough--ripened and red or nearing red--still hang like a NM postcard come to life. Though, many of the fruit, poblano and chile, that were still growing and green by the time of the first freeze, seem to have been irreversibly damaged by the abundant and swelling ice-crystals within their watery cells.  Those chiles are now a pale soggy semblance of their ripened brethren. 

I've digressed long enough in remembering the native vegetable garden behind the house, the aim of this post was the cold favoring vegetables of my front gardens: green onion, radish, chard, collard greens, mixed greens, cabbage (green and purple varieties), broccoli, and brussel sprouts.  Plus a few hardy herbs like mint, rosemary, and sage. 

 

Northern lights chard

These plants benefit from the physical protection and thermal mass of the neighboring houses when the cold dry air begins to snake down Black Diamond Canyon from the mesas to the north; I've found a 2-4 degree temperature differential between the exposed rear gardens and the front gardens.  Though, more than the location of their garden beds, the season-extending benefit of these plants comes from their genetics. The brassica family (e.g. cabbage) seems to be filled with some type of natures anti-freeze.  I'm especially thankful for the longest possible growing season due to the hour or so less of direct sunlight that hits my gardens during the growing season due to the depth and high walls of the narrow canyon, and the under-fertilized clay soil I forced all the under-sized brassicas to grow in this year.

  

Sage and rosemary

Using the biological control NOLO Bait for grasshoppers this year has really improved the appearance of my cabbage and brussel sprouts.  The latter being a favorite of my local grasshoppers; I lost my entire crop of brussels sprouts- three stout plants- to the little creatures last year.

Storage and purple cabbage

Native American Bread at the Gallup Flea Market

Zuni and Acoma Pueblo sourdough and sweets

Among the many great local foods at the Gallup Flea Market-- N. 9th street, 8-1 pm every Saturday of the year-- are the bountiful varieties of Native American breads from Zuni, Acoma, Santo Domingo Pueblo, and of course, Navajo red-clay ovens of a dozen or more vendors. White sourdough loaves, cornhusk wrapped 'kneel down bread,' fruit pies and turn-overs, and the ubiquitous fry-bread are the predominant characters.  

Jimmy Paywa's display at the flea market

You have to try all of them at some point, but my favorite is the traditional Zuni sourdough, uniquely shaped for tearing off and dipping in stew, from the Paywa family in Zuni. Their ovens are open for visitors (Wed-Fri), just look for the sign on the right of the main road as you drive into Zuni -- Sourdough goes in the oven around noon on Friday, followed by the fruit pies. Interestingly, all of the half-dozen bakers I spoke with said they used Blue Bird flour from local Cortez, CO.

Apple Harvest

Black Diamond Canyon's 2009 apples

My garden includes 8 apple trees of different varieties, ages, shapes, sizes and health. Some are old, some tall, some broad, some struggling, most sour, and all beautiful sweet wood.  Gallup's late spring freezes often claim my apple blossoms, but not this year, the last freeze never came and I have apples.

Two of the 15+ year old 'Washburn Era' Apple Trees

Despite that upbeat theme, only 4 of my trees produced fruit, and most from the old skinny tree I usually over look. I harvested most of them a little green or just ripening when the flocks of migrating songbirds began feasting on each of the ripest fruit; 12 lbs of various sized fruit filled my basket and pantry just in time.  

The rare ripe apples that eluded the birds

Gallup Farmers' Market

August 29th Gallup Farmers' Market

Get there early!  I rode down to the Gallup Farmers' Market shortly after The Splendid Table ended this morning. Earlier than I usually get down there. And good thing; many of the greens were sold out before the market even opened at 8:30!

An $8 bag of local groceries

 

Nestled in the morning shade of the downtown walkway on Coal St., a half-dozen growers were set-up when I rolled in at 8:15. A line had already formed at the Serendipity Farms (Pinehaven)table, and the last of the mixed lettuce was being rationed out, so I decided to start at the Work-in-Beauty CSA table. They had great looking swiss chard and bountiful large zuccs. I bought a bunch of chard with 4 of the 32 quarters I brought with me today.  Next to them were the Vanderwagon couple selling sourdough, white, and honey-oat loaves; all baked using home-milled flour from our local breadbasket region of Cortez, CO. I bought a $4 loaf of the sourdough and was excited to hear that they have found a local source of wheat from Ramah. They also sell really neat planters made from recycled car tires. Finally, I joined the line for Serendipity's produce, with an eye on their fat carrots and beets; both crops fell to grasshoppers in my garden this year. The salad greens were long gone ($4/gal. bag), but they still had a couple bunches of beets, carrots, turnips, and chard remaining when I passed over my final quarters. Two more people in line behind me indicated that the Douglass's would be sold-out before 9 am. Get there early!

This August 3rd Gallup Independent article has general information on the regional farmers' markets and some of Brian Leddy's great photos.