Going, Growing, Gone

Bite-sized strawberries hang from floppy forbs in a plot in Maclovia Community Garden, in a park just a few blocks off Cerrillos Road. A few feet away, a row of young artichokes sprout from the soil. In Colonia Prisma Community Garden on the Southside, green and red corrugated plastic walls surround Marty Carvlin's tomatoes. Water insulates the walls, absorbing sunlight to keep the plants warm in the chilly desert night. "I'm going to have to take them off pretty soon, because it's getting a little hot," she says. "But they love it."

The shared gardens are peppered throughout the public open space, mostly in what Esparza refers to as "pocket parks." The city established its first community gardens in 2009 with Frenchy's Field and Maclovia, adding more as the venture proved successful. A 9-by-4-foot plot in one of the gardens costs $15, the city provides access to water, and Esparza delivers free manure whenever necessary, so the only thing a gardener need bring is a spade, some seeds and a green thumb.

Each garden is managed by a mayordomo (which is a fancy word for the person in charge, and a nod to the managers of the region's historic, and in some cases still functioning, acequias). Christie Green, whose Radicle Landscape Design business helps clients develop sustainable gardens, says that one of the greatest challenges to maintaining a community garden is finding someone sufficiently dedicated to overseeing it. "Unless they're really a hard-core gardener, we don't have time or energy for it. We're just going to go to the Farmers Market."

Though Green has her doubts about the level of commitment to community gardens, she says it's "one of the best ways to connect with people." She sees the excitement in her friends when they post pictures on Facebook of food they have grown themselves. "We live in a time of expedited excess and zero appreciation for what you've gotten. Tending the soil, growing plants, it is a miracle. The tiniest of seeds produces a ton of food. I don't think it ever becomes something that people take for granted."

Most of Santa Fe's community gardeners live within a short bike ride away from their plots. Some live across the street. Amy Anderson meets Carvlin early Saturday morning at Colonia Prisma. "It was so close to my house," Anderson says. "I'm able to just walk over here." Among Anderson's crop are cucumbers, sugar pumpkins and ornamental corn. That last one was the idea of Anderson's 8-year-old daughter, Celine. She not only picked the seeds out, but she planted them as well.

Carvlin says that growing her own food forces her to eat seasonally. It's also fresher and closer to her home. "I try not to drive all over the place, and I try to think about the carbon footprint on anything I buy, not just groceries."

This personal level of involvement with one's food is exactly what Maria Bernardez teaches at Mother Nature Center. Her organization educates children on the basics of gardening. "It's very meditative and very healthy to work in the garden," Bernardez says. When you grow your own food, "things are going to be fresh. Things are going to taste much better."

One might expect that growing fruits and vegetables in a desert climate would be difficult, but Bernardez says that's not the case. With just a small plot of land, access to water and some clean soil, the sun will do the rest. "Plants need a lot less sunshine than you think here in New Mexico." She says it's important to use soil that is free of pesticides, waste or other chemicals. She recommends her clients grow their fruits and vegetables in boxes of dirt that they know is clean. Plus, it can take time to build clay and sand into soil with compost.

"It wasn't the easiest soil to work with," Anderson says as she grabs a line of hose and sprays her fledgling seedlings, "but I tried to grow some stuff that I think is a more traditional crop that wouldn't be too delicate." Despite the difficulty she says, "it looks like everything's coming up pretty well."

Yet it's not always the climate or the soil that gardeners need worry about. The biggest threat to community gardens is the vegetable-thieving prairie dog. Frenchy's Field Park served as the home of the city's first public community garden. According to Esparza, one of the conditions Bernard "Frenchy" Parachou made when he bequeathed his land to the city was that the prairie dogs not be removed. As a result, the Parks and Recreation Department made several failed attempts at keeping the critters out of the garden's 16 plots. The prairie dogs ultimately won the battle, and the garden had to be closed. "They eat everybody's stuff," Esparza says, "and of course, you're going to get discouraged."

Luckily, none of the other gardens in city parks have that mandate, so if prairie dogs become a problem, they can be relocated in a humane fashion. So far there have been no reported sightings at the other gardens, though Carvlin did spy a squirrel checking out her radishes. It has yet to devise a plan of attack as of presstime.

Most gardens have a waiting list to get in, but anyone interested in snapping up Colonia Prisma's remaining plot for a late-season crop can contact Esparza at 955-2106.

Santa Fe Reporter