There are a number of things to consider when you are growing fruit and vegetables
The healthier your soil is the less water you will need over the growing season. Improve your soils by adding compost and other amendments every year. Getting a soil test can help you determine exactly what to add.
Cover your garden with an organic mulch, whether it is straw or wood chips (or another organic product). A thick layer (3-4”) of mulch will reduce the frequency of watering, and the amount you need because it helps cool the soil and protects against rapid evaporation.
Raised beds and pots can make gardening more convenient because you don’t have to stoop and it’s a way to utilize small spaces, or area where the ground may not be able to be used for gardening. The convenience often comes with a trade-off. Raised beds and pots tend to require water more frequently, often times using more water over a growing season than if you planted your garden in the soil.
Historic, or traditional methods, such as waffle gardens and using ollas (unglazed terracotta pots which go in the soil at a plant’s rootzone) will often help you conserve water. More information on waffle gardens can be found here: Waffle Gardens - UNM Sustainability
Choose appropriate fruits and vegetables for your garden. Blueberries may be a “superfood” and delicious, but they want to grow in acidic, consistently moist soils. Those conditions are essentially the opposite of Albuquerque. Huckleberries, related to blueberries, prefer a more alkaline soil, and will often flourish in drier conditions.
We have provided you with a quick guide to also give you a better idea of the relative amount of water needed to keep your fruits and veggies healthy and consistently producing for you.
Author: Richard Perce, Irrigation Efficiency Specialist with the Water Conservation Department for the Water Authority. Have a question about the article? AskAnExpert@abcwua.org
Congrats to the ten winners of our first annual Water Authority Desert Friendly Landscape Contest! Thank you for sharing your beautiful gardens with us. They will be an inspiration for others to make the switch to desert-friendly landscapes.
A transformation from an unhealthy-looking, high-water use turfscape to a colorful xeriscape medley.
Before
This family was ready to change out their high-water and high-maintenance front lawn grass to a desert-friendly landscape. Their new low-water and low-maintenance yard features 94 desert-friendly xeriscape plants. They worked with a professional company on the design, to remove the sod and to install the drip system and new plants. Plants were selected from the Xeriscape Guide provided by their contractor.
After
By transforming their yard to a xeriscape, they were able to save a total of 156,000 gallons of water within the first year and get a $1,300 rebate from the Water Authority for the conversion. They saved even more money because the contractor was able to reuse existing irrigation valves to convert the spray to a drip system. The best part, they say is “the variety of colors from the plants and the birds and butterflies the landscape attracts”. They also receive many compliments from neighbors and friends, which makes them feel proud.
AfterAfter
Talk about creating a diverse and lush yard! This desert-friendly landscape has all the right elements.
As a retired landscape architect Richard Bumstead had the pleasure of designing and installing his own landscape during the beginning of the pandemic. Like many Albuquerque yards, his front yard located in the center of the city was covered with junipers and gravel. Removing them opened up a large area, creating a blank slate and the opportunity to diversify his landscape. Having spent most of his career in Chicago, Richard was not very familiar with the local plants. He read many New Mexico plant books, including Judith Phillips, “Growing the Southwest Garden” and the “Down to Earth” guide from Albuquerque Master Gardeners. The staff at Plants of the Southwest and Jericho were also a big help as he prepared his landscape plan. His visible front yard is now full of native pollinator plants along with three trees that are local favorites: Pinon Pine, Desert Willow and New Mexico Locust.
Richard waters his established plants once a month in the winter and only once a week during the irrigation season. He says the key to having a good-looking landscape is to prepare the soil and water plants to the right depth.
Since he has a more protected backyard, Richard was able to add many shade-loving plants as well as foraging plants like strawberries, rhubarb, tomatoes, an apricot tree and a variety of herbs. Find his extensive plant list here.
BeforeAfterAfter: Close up of Fleabane Daisy, with Grey Desert Spoon and Silver Mound artemisia in the background. After: Close up of Purple Flax
From Bermuda Grassland to a Desert Friendly Landscape!
Geri Martinez’s property, which is located in one of the older areas of town surrounded by large established trees, had the kind of yard that’s typically found in Albuquerque’s UNM and Ridgecrest neighborhoods. It was covered in Bermuda grass and had a large mulberry tree. Geri was ready to refresh the front yard of her 60+ year-old home. With the help of a landscape designer, she came up with a planting design plan.
After
Geri, an avid DIY’er, installed her own plants and irrigation system. To help her figure out what to plant and how to set up the irrigation system, she read local publications from nurseries, attended workshops and used a professional landscape design to determine plants locations.
Geri loves sitting outside and watching the birds and bees that are attracted to her landscape. Saving water has been her goal. She’s not only reduced her front yard water use but also the amount of water she uses indoors. She has low-flow fixtures inside the home and utilizes rain barrels to supplement her landscape’s irrigation during the rainy season. Geri is proud to have a visually-appealing landscape that conserves water.
One hundred years ago, almost every house with a yard had a vegetable garden. This was before the era of mass-produced, well-traveled foods readily available in the big grocery stores. People grew these gardens out of necessity. The whole family joined in, breathing fresh outdoor air and staying active while growing super healthy food to eat.
While we don’t have to do that now, every year more people are discovering the joys (and pains) of growing their own fresh produce. Maybe you’re one of those folks who has recently picked up a hoe and a packet of seeds.
Here are tips for starting gardens as well as suggestions for easy and tasty plants to grow.
Good soil and regular watering are keys to having a successful garden. In the dry Southwest rich soils don’t form naturally, so you’ll need to create a good soil first, and then maintain it.
Setting up wide garden beds makes the most efficient use of amended garden soil and applied irrigation (read John Jeavon’s excellent book How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine for more on the hows and whys of wide beds).
You may need to break up the soil before planting your first garden. Once the soil is loosened and amended, it’s better to work in new compost with hand tools and to mulch deeply with an organic mulch. Hand tools have advantages: They don’t destroy the living soil the way mechanical tillage does, they aren’t noisy, they don’t smell like exhaust and you get good exercise while using them!
Drip irrigation is ideal for vegetable beds, and there are numerous ways to set up a good system. If you are using the outdoor hose bib, be sure to include anti-siphon devices, pressure reducers and good filters to keep everything safe and functional. Timers are optional but recommended. It sounds complicated but really isn’t hard, and the results are well worth the effort.
Add organic mulch! There are a number of good choices for organic mulch.
Garden beds are in and ready. What are you going to plant?
Some vegetable species prefer warm (even hot) temperatures, while others grow best in cooler weather. At this point in the season, start with the warm weather crops.
Corn is fun to grow. In a small garden, you don’t really get a lot of food for the space that corn uses, but those tall stalks play other roles as well. The shade they cast, especially in the afternoon, helps other plants grow in our hot, sunny climate. Pole beans, which can be planted around the new corn plants when they’re about a foot tall, will climb the corn stalks. Beans can also add nitrogen to the soil in partnership with certain symbiotic bacteria living in their roots. Flat Italian pole green beans are a true fresh garden delight! Almost any green beans — bush or pole — are easy and satisfying to grow.
Tomatoes are an annual favorite for many gardeners. There are so many varieties of tomato plants, from short patio container plants and wild rambling cherry tomatoes to dense San Marzano paste tomatoes and Cherokee Purple slicers. The curly top virus can be a problem, but plants growing in light shade are less likely to contract the illness. Blossom end rot sometimes crops up and is most easily controlled with good mulching and regular irrigation. Adding some bone meal to the garden bed may help a bit, too.
If you have room for them to roam, consider planting watermelons! The smaller icebox varieties are a great size, and when planted in our area they tend to have few if any, pest and disease problems. They do, however, need an ample amount of water. Diversify your landscape by planting them in border flower beds where the vines can grow across the yard. They can take over small garden beds, so be careful where you plant them.
As the cooler fall temperatures arrive, lots of other veggies can be planted. Many of them should be seeded in August for fall harvest. Be sure to keep the seed beds moist and shaded a bit so the soil is cooler. Alternatively, you can start them in trays or little pots indoors. If they start to get long and thin, it’s a sign that they need more light!
Lettuce is a great fall crop. Romaine and butterhead varieties do well here and are distinct enough to add culinary variety. Other great greens for fall include spinach, kale and Swiss chard. Greens are high nitrogen users, so amend the beds again for fall planting, and periodically give them a light fertilizing with something like fish emulsion (smells awful, grows great plants!) or another soluble plant fertilizer.
Fall is also a great time to plant root crops. Both beets (botanically, the same plant as Swiss chard) and carrots do well in the autumn. Don’t try to start these in pots or trays. Root crops do much better when directly seeded into the ground. There are many gourmet varieties of both beets and carrots, even carrots that come in a mix of orange, yellow, white and purple colors. Shorter varieties are better for most home gardens, as the long ones require deep loose soil to form well.
All the cool season crops can be grown right through the winter if they are harvest-size by the time very cold weather hits. Keep them well mulched. As far as greens go, buy some spun-bound row cover material to drape over them. It’s amazing how well they will do with just a little protection. These crops can be started again in early spring for the spring, cool-season garden.
Learn more by checking out these other useful drip irrigation articles:
The most important part of watering is figuring out how deep you need to water your plants. Once you figure that out, you can easily follow our chart that tells you how often to water.
Here are six simple steps to figuring out your watering depth:
Step 1: Water your landscape for the usual amount of time. If it’s the first time you’re watering, start with the number of minutes found in this Irrigation Advice Chart.
Step 2: Wait 24 hours after watering so the water has a chance to percolate into the soil.
Step 3: Grab a measuring tool, such as an 18” depth screwdriver, soil probe, barbecue skewer or 24” long piece of rebar, and probe your tool into an area you didn’t water to check the soil resistance. Next, go to an area that you watered the day before. Push the probe in until it stops. It should go in fairly easily. Don’t try to push it in further once it stops because you can accidentally break a pipe. Mark the spot it went into with your finger, tape or a permanent marker. Pull out the probe and measure the number of inches. Those inches represent your current watering depth. Using the Seasonal Watering Recommendations chart you can find out the depth you need for your type of plant.
Step 4: Adjust your watering time to correctly determine the watering depth. Did you only water 4” but needed a 12” watering depth? If so, then add more time to your watering schedule and perform the test again. Did you water 24” but only needed 18”? If so, then subtract time from your watering schedule. Water again and wait 24 hours to retest.
Step 5: Once you figure out the amount of time you need to water so the water penetrates to the correct soil depth, you are set.
Step 6: Set your controller for the correct amount of time. Use our handy Seasonal Watering Recommendations chart to see how often you’ll need to water your plants.
Don’t overthink it. Our local, desert-friendly plants (native and adaptive plants typically found in our local nurseries) usually thrive in our native soil.
Learn more by checking out these other useful drip irrigation articles:
Author: Jill Brown, ASLA, is a Landscape Architect and owner of My Landscape Coach in Albuquerque, NM. Have A question about the article? AskAnExpert@abcwua.org
With spring fast approaching and many homeowners heading out to local plant nurseries, we want to remind you how to plant for a healthy plant. Choosing the right plant for the right place is the most important consideration. Once you’ve selected the perfect desert-friendly plant, installing and irrigating it correctly are the next steps for success.
Step 1: Select the Right Plant for the Right Spot
Sun-loving plants should be planted in sunny spaces. Shade-loving plants should be placed under trees or next to walls where they’ll be protected from our intense New Mexico sun. Be sure the area is big enough to accommodate the plant when it reaches its full mature size, and remember to place plants with similar water needs together.
Step 2: Dig the Right Size Hole and Loosen the Soil
The right size hole for trees and shrubs is about three times wider and just a few inches deeper than the depth of the root ball. When transplanting annuals and perennials, look at the diameter of the plant’s container and make sure the soil around the hole is loosened up three to five times the size of the diameter of the container. If you dig a hole that’s just big enough for the plant’s root ball, you greatly limit how far the roots can easily grow and spread.
Step 3: Carefully Remove the Plant from its Container and Separate Matted Roots
Turn small plants upside down, supporting the soil with your hands. Tap the sides of the pot to loosen the soil, then lift the pot off the root ball. Pulling annuals and perennials out by their stems and leaves can cause damage.
Step 4:Place the Plant in the Hole and Backfill the Hole
Place the plant in the hole, making sure that the top of the root ball is close to level with the surrounding soil. Shovel the soil around the plant’s roots to fill in the hole and tamp gently to remove any large air pockets. If plants are going to be watered by hand or supplemented with rainwater, they should be planted in broad, shallow basins at least 4” deep and as wide as possible to hold water so it soaks deeply into the soil.
Step 5:Give the Plant a Good Soaking
Even water-thrifty xeric plants need a healthy drenching when transplanted. Make sure you soak the plant’s entire root zone. Keep in mind that your new plants will need more frequent watering during their first year than in subsequent years.
Step 6:Add Mulch!
A thick layer of shredded wood chip mulch, 2”- 4” deep depending on the size of the plant, will minimize evaporation, cool the soil and reduce weed growth.
Step 7: Use Efficient Irrigation
The majority of desert-friendly plants suitable for New Mexico landscapes can be most efficiently watered using drip irrigation. Drip emitters save water because they deliver a slow, steady dose of water directly to the plant’s root zone, significantly reducing evaporation.
Step 8:Maintain Your Desert-Friendly Xeriscape
Even a low-maintenance xeriscape requires some maintenance. Periodically check your irrigation system for leaks or clogs. Clean the filter and check drip emitters to prevent plugging. For trees and large shrubs, you may need to move emitters outward and add extra emitters as plants grow to make sure water soaks the entire root zone. Use our Water by the Seasons Watering Recommendations for all your seasonal water needs.
Check out our free .pdf, display it in a visible place and use it when you start your spring plantings.
Learn more by checking out these other useful drip irrigation articles:
