Mountainair Community Garden workday Sat Feb26 and other news

Tomas Wolff reports...

Brief Farmers Market update: Thursdays 3-7 pm in the town square space in front of Dr Saul, tentatively opening 1st Thursday in May. The Mountainair Farm and Garden Market issued a call for local growers / home gardeners, food producers and processors of hand-crafted foods, artisans to participate as vendors. Contact Rebecca Lueras, rebeccalue@aol.com, or Kristine Lauritsen, stonehousegallery@gmail.com, for more information. Vendor forms will be available soon. The steering committee is also working on developing a web presence. 

This information on starting seeds is probably too simplistic for advanced gardeners, but perhaps good for a review! 

Will anyone be attending the Water Conservation and Xeriscape Conference in Albuquerque on February 24-25 (Thursday and Friday)? Please come tell us about it at the workday and/or send a report to post here.

Next Meeting ~ Saturday Feb. 26th

The meeting will be a seeds planting day, 10 AM. We have a plan to plant at least 100 seedlings (or more) depending on our speed and thoroughness.

 Monica suggested using 6 oz. solo cups with holes in the bottom! Then the cups could be placed in black "contractors" vats/troughs for easier moving. Any other low, wide trays we could use? Plastic ones perhaps. We will also need to keep them identified and sorted.


Please bring any soil, seeds, or pots and trays you have extra. I have purchased enough of these supplies to get us started on Saturday, so we can determine our exact needs later. The number of seedlings we start depends on room available in the greenhouse, and the wishes of all you community gardeners. So please come and help make some decisions.

Let me know if you are coming.


Last Meeting ~ 

For those of you who missed our last meeting, we discussed the goal of planting 500 seeds in 2-3 inch pots and starting them in the greenhouse so graciously offered to us by Addie. We decided, with Monica's recommendation, to plant 200 tomato plants, 100 hot pepper plants, and 200 herb plants to include basil, cilantro and oregano. This can be altered a bit.

These seedlings would be to sell at the first day of the farmers' market and in the weeks before and after. Potentially we could make $1,000 to help pay our expenses and buy future supplies.


It was agreed we would use the $149 in the bank to buy basics: seeds, starter potting soil, containers. I have ordered the seeds and soil and am working on buying some seed starting pots with trays and covers. Obviously, we will need some donations as we go along for more containers and water and such. As soon as the materials arrive next week we can plan a planting session together. What would be a good time for that?


Saturday, Feb.12th or Feb. 26th, perhaps? The 19th is the Sweet Retreat for the Arts Council and everyone is invited! It's free and lots of pastries are planned. We are making future plans.Also, the above plans do not include plans for our own community garden! We should still decide what we want to plant there and include some greenhouse starters for that.

Thanks to everyone for your indulgence. I think we have gotten partially through the planning stage. Spring is just a month away!