Hi there! I live in NM. We have lived in the desert and now live in the Sacramento Mountains.

I'm sort of a desert gardener. Just an amateur, but I try to grow a few things in our desert region!

I'm in the northwest of New Mexico the 4 corners

Greetings from Hillsboro, NM 35 mile sw of T or C

I grow mainly potato leaf tomatoes in containers, about 75 different varieties every year. Also a few cukes,onions, zucchini, and chile peppers to make the salsa

I'm in NM, about 45 or so miles SE of ABQ, not quite desert and not exactly "southern" NM either. Is that close enough? : ) We had great success with our garden last year (first year here), especially the peppers! We had tons of dried Serranos to give as Christmas gifts! Tomatos were disappointing, maybe we should try containers.

HI,
I am new to this site and have just joined. I am in the Sandia Mountians about 15 minutes east of Alb. NM. This will be my first experience gardening in NM and we are clearing and digging up a space that is about 17x45 ft.
I know nothing about gardening in NM (previous gardens in the clay of VA.) and we have a lot of ground squirrels, moles and rabbits.
I am wanting to put in corn,cabbage,cucumbers, zucchini,Snow peas,Blue Lake Bush beans,onions,Yellow was beans,Cantelope,Broccoli,Califlower, beets,carrots,tomatoes,and peppers.
We would love to receive some tips on when to start planting seeds, how to ward off the "varmits" and how often to water. We will be putting up a 6 ft high chicken wire fence to keep out the rabbits...but the underground "diggers" will be the challenge.
I look forward to swapping information. Can anyone tell me what is needed in regards to fertilizer? We are cleanig off rocks right now and believe we will be needing to put in some fertilizer in advance of planting. We had free horse manure offered but I have been warned it carries a lot of unwanted seeds ( thistles etc.)Any thoughts on this?

It's been so long since I have been able to put in a garden and I am so excited. I look forward to hearing everyones ideas. I am going to read through the older posts now.Those who have been here longer...please feel free to direct me to other forums if you think it will help. I haven't found my way around yet. It's nice to meet all of you.
Thank you!

I split time between Alb. and L.C. area. I love that zone 8 supports palms, yet is cold enough in winter for fuit trees.

Hi...We live just south of Cruces. Don't know much about gardening here, as I have little experience with desert gardening. Fun so far...except for those blankety-blank-Bunnies...Grrrrr.

I'm newly transplanted to Bosque Farms, south of Albuquerque, from Alaska. It's a whole different world. My lot was pretty much bare dirt when I moved on it in November,except for a large elm and couple of roses. I have planted 10 more roses, 3 pine trees and one maple tree. I have built three small flower beds and working on more between the roses and shrubs along the fence line. It's been interesting. I discovered the Winter Sowing forum in December and now I have tons of flowers sprouting in containers to go into the flower beds. Now I'll get to see what survives.

I, too am a transplant from the east coast. We moved to Albuquerque from Georgia. We have several fruit trees and 3 8x8 vegetable beds. I have been using aged cow manure, rabbit manure(from our own bunnies)as well as ironite on the fruit trees and roses. I have a small compost tumbler that I mix rabbit manure and shredded paper from school in. I don't have access to alot of brown stuff for the compost. We also have lots of room for flowers and get full sun in the back and front of the house. I grew tomatoes, bell and chile peppers, zuccini along with eggplants. I will probably grow the same vegetables this season, just adding Armenian cucumbers. Welcome to the neighbor.

Welsome, Challanged! We had great luck last year growing much of what you're planning to grow. For fertalizer, we just tilled in a few bags of miracle grow's garden and flower soil. We planted our cold hardy plants last weekend; peas, onions, radish, spinach. Would have done cabbage as well, but this particular package says to start 'em inside and plant at 6" or so high. We may plant our strawberries this weekend. I'm also seriously considering planting the zuch's, cucumbers and a few other "warm weather" plants, partly 'cause it's been so warm and may stick, but also 'cause I have about 5 times as many as I have space for growing in the living room. If we lose this bunch, no real loss. We'll wait a couple more weeks for corn and beans from seed, and move the melon plants out. We'll also get pepper and tomato plants in a few weeks.

As far as water, use your judgement. Right now we're about every 3 days, last summer it was daily, mornings or evenings preferably. I'd also advise you to check out the topical forums - you can find answers to specific questions there.

And aklinda, we also moved from Alaska, last May! We'd only been there for 2 years though - loved every minute of it!

cheers!

randit, I know what you mean about the bunnies! Some years, they even mow down the plants sold as rabbit proof! But I love the wild life around our place, so for some plants, I put a wire cage around them until they're big enough to hold their own with the bunnies. Sierra Vista Nursery on NM 28, south of Las Cruces on the Texas border has a lot of drought tolerant, relatively rabbit resistant plants. they are very knowledgable and helpful, and their prices nearly at wholesale.

Las Cruces:Anyone have experience with almond trees and apricot trees not setting buds this year?

We live in Tularosa and are trying to grow a big garden, mostly tomatoes and squash. The only flowers I've had success with thus far are roses. We have a real gopher problem.

anyone here raising aril or arilbred iris.
Slate

We just moved from Washington state to Alamogordo, looking for anyone local willing to share advice.

cinderblock: a couple books to get you started: "Best Plants for New Mexico by Baker H. Morrow, and anything by Judith Phillips. I believe that most of Alamogordo is Zone 8 like Las Cruces, so you have lots to choose from. Welcome to the Chihuahuan desert!
--dl

transplanted from central okla to carlsbad and still in garden shock..there's no soil here..just this caliche whatever.left black bottomland and still working this around to something acceptable.

Hi! This is my first posting since moving to Las Cruces, although I was on this site a few years ago when I lived in NC.

I am looking at Palo Verde (cercidium floridum), Sweet Acacia (acacia fernesiana), and Catlaw acacia (acacia greggii) trees. Does anyone have info on these?

Thanks.

arid zone trees site has good information on these

Here is a link that might be useful: Arid Zone Trees

I live just outside of Alamogordo almost in La Luz. Even though I am a native and have had wonderful gardens in eastern NM, I have had a lot of challenges here. Mostly due to the rocky soil since I live in the foothills of the Sacramentos and the higher altitudes than I used to garden in. The only problems I had with Jack rabbits I solved by planting most things inside stucco walls or wire fencing. Plus taking one of the cats out to run them out! I have over 30 roses bushes and they have always performed wonderfully for me in NM. I love cactus and have a nice collection outside my stucco walls. Iris, cantaloupe and tomatoes have always been the plants I love growing.

As for zone-when I put my zip code in it tells me zone 6 and I feel like it should be 8 so I just split the dif and have it listed as 7! LOL!

The winds blew the blossoms off my almond trees this year. There were a few almonds last year, but the dogs got them. My trees are still young--only about three feet high, but they have nice crowns.

The birds got the cherries, because I wasn't smart enough to pick them before they fully ripened. A local farmer told me to pick fruit just before it is ripe, stow it in a bucket and cover it with plastic. He said it will ripen nicely, and that way the birds won't get it.

I have seven dogs and they are garden raiders! They got almost all of my watermelons last year. I put up a much sturdier fence around the produce plot this year with logs around the perimeter to prevent digging in. Two of the dogs have figured out how to open the gate! I am thinking I am going to have to build a block wall dog yard so they can have their own yard.

I live on a mesa outside of Los Lunas, so the Bosque Farms lady is practically a neighbor. :-) I relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area 4-1/2 years ago.

My soil is very sandy here. I continually add peat moss, soil amendment and compost. I am big on using earth worms as part of my organic gardening routine. I have to improve the soil A LOT before I can introduce the worms. I have significantly improved some areas of my yard, and worms are doing well in those areas.

Ah,the challenges of gardening in New Mexico. The constant soil amending. Best bet is to go to native plant nurseries and get things which require fewer amendments. I have found Judith Phillips' books to be an invaluable resource for beatiful natives or at least desert compatible plants, and the time spent amending the native soils gets less every year.

I have found that drought resistant is something of a misnomer. Yes, maybe some plants generally need less water. However, during long periods of high heat, and/or high winds, those plants do need extra water. Drought resistant does not mean heat resistant, or wind resistant! Agastache is one such plant which comes to mind.

I have found the only thing that improves the 18 inches of caliche I have in my yard is compost and lots of it. I have 4 gardens that rotate with one garden lying fallow each year and the compost heap is built on it. That way, one garden is always in process of renewal and the soil improves dramatically. I have thrown everything into my soil with nothing working except the compost heap. Lots of worms, black soil, good tilth.

I am about three miles from the Mexican border so that is about as southern New Mexico as you can get.

My acre and a half space is also an NWF refuge, so I welcome all rabbits, and ground squirrels and birds and the rest. The road runners are startling, the quail wonderful to watch (how could anyone shoot out a friend's face pursuing these fist sized birds with a high powered shotgun as their families and babies run by in single file? What's left after you shoot them? How's that for family values? Don't get me started!) so all living things are welcome here (I'd like to get a few chickens in to go on scorpion patrol someday!)

I am planning along an eastern facing wall some rosemary plantings, with perhaps a few roses, and wondering what would make it. I hope mainly to get natives in, like mesquite and cacti and ocotillo and agave, etc. There's room enough here, and I've only been in a few months now. Still unpacking boxes. I immediately pulled down a decorative block wall and reset it at the front and center for a meditation garden, and pulled down an old improvised BBQ pit in the back to build a walkway there, to my main bird (and varmint) feeding area. Plenty of those white wing doves around here, whose scientific name ends with asiatica, the only non native species welcome here. I see hummers and woodpeckers buzzing around, but have not yet set up there stations. Have the butterfly puddle going with a slow drip system; the quail families like it too. I set up some small bird feeders (long feeders for small birds) that the dove never bothered in my last place, but these out here, normally ground feeders, have figured out how to hang on and pull out some feed, very strange. Like Flying squirrels in their tenacity!

I appreciate deertlvr's advice on local sources, and will go check them out after payday. ALso their advice on transplanting barrel cactus and agave from the leach field as the state inspector advised.

Someday I hope to set up the heat resistant strain of tomato as well as squash, bean, etc. Mostly a got a great crop of tumbleweed. I haven't seen any of those goathead making weeds, thank goodness. I hate tracking those seeds into the house and "discovering" them later in the carpet while barefoot.

Well, let me know how it goes and what I can do here, too, coming from zone 6. I admire desertlvr's advice about the fruit trees as well.

I'm in Las Cruces, moved here 3 years ago. It is definitely a challenging place to garden, I'm constantly learning new things. Someone previously mentioned agastache, which I had never heard of before moving here. Now it's my favorite plant! It blooms all summer and the hummingbirds adore it.

The roadrunners are amazing. The first year I was here, a female road runner followed me around daily, as I cleaned up the land. She never got closer than three feet from me, but she was always interested in "supervising" my efforts.

I was very surprised at her melodious voice and the variety of sounds she made. I would attempt to imitate her, and she would answer. The following spring, she often brought her baby on her visits. I had such fun with those two. Though as the baby grew up, he proved to be much less interactive than his mother.

I saw my first frog last week, a tiny little guy. I was quite surprised to see him in this dry area. He wasn't at all afraid of me. So I think he must be a baby rather than a small species of frog. I suppose he must have been born in a vernal pool. I always provide a bowl of water for the birds and rabbits, maybe he is taking advantage of that water.

Wow, how lucky you are victorhugo in regard to the goatshead stickers. No matter how hard I scrape my shoes before I come into the house I always manage to bring some in with me. I howl like a wolf, when I step on those darned things with bare feet. The first few months here, one of my dogs, a Samoyed, wouldn't go more than a few yards from the house because of those stickers. They stuck to his long hair like crazy. I finally got the yard cleaned up enough that he was able to go around without picking up very many stickers.

I have 1-3/4s acres, but I have been concentrating most of my gardening efforts on about 1/3 of an acre fenced in around the house. I have found that the Week's brand of roses do better here than any other type I have purchased. Rose flowers will just fry in the hot sun, if the bushes don't have some afternoon shade.