The birth of Black Diamond Canyon Farm

In December I officially made the jump from gardner to urban farmer with the purchase of a city business license and the acquisition of a CRS tax-id number. Considering my affinity to a sense of place, I named it Black Diamond Canyon Farm. While I had pondered the move earlier, in a sense my hand was forced by the unwillingness of my bank to cash several hundred dollars worth of NM Farmers' market WIC and Senior Nutrition Program checks, that I had legitimately accepted during the latter part of the farmers' market season, unless I provided a CRS number for them to report it under. None the less, the $35 expense and slightly more complicated personal taxes were little burden considering the many benefits I've gained.

Turning a new leaf; the winter of 2010/2011

The excitement and new sense of purpose in planning this coming years' crops being the first of these benefits. Followed closely by making equipment and supply purchases tax-free, and in-time the benefit of having better branding and merchandizing potential should help alleviate my biggest growing hurdle of 2010-- what to do with all the food I grew when customers don't show up at the market and I'm too full to eat anymore and tired of canning it.

In the months since the final harvest of 2010, I've been more than busy both outside in the fields and inside planning. I'll cover all those activities on the new blog/website, www.blackdiamondcanyonfarm.com, but I'll run down a few of the bigger changes now:

• With the blessings of several of my neighbors I've more than tripled the square footage of my growing areas for the coming year.
• Submitted paperwork to become Organic 'Registered' by NMOCC.
• Planted 2500 garlic plants (12 varieties) and overwintered 1000+ various onion/leek transplants to experiment with cold tolerance.
• Purchased a really efficient mechanical seeder and professional grade salad spinner/chiller.
• Constructed 6' x 160' of protected low tunnels growing winter greens and carrots (on the recent nights plunging to -21 degrees, the unheated tunnels never dropped below 22 degrees above zero- totally within the tolerable temperature range for carrots and baby asian greens).

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!