Gardening ideas

One of the things I have learned since our move to New Mexico is that I will have to learn a new way of gardening. I used to compost everything--but food in a compost pile attracts critters like bears and we don't want to invite bears to our yard. A friend of mine who lived in a town house started worm composting, which was a good way to dispose of kitchen scraps. You can also buy enclosed composters that aren't quite as messy as my favorite, out-under-a-tree compost bin. Here, the composter will have to be in the house, garage or basement to keep animals from getting into it, so I am still thinking about exactly how to do that given that our winter nights can get rather cold. Worms would probably die from the cold, but I do have an unfinished basement where I could stash an enclosed composter, if I can make it mouse proof.

Another problem is protecting plants from deer and elk. They will hop right up on your deck and eat things. We have a deck that goes completely around our house and being that we are on a hill, three sides are hard to reach. The deer would have to walk in from the back side of the house. I'm gambling they won't do that, but we'll see. The deck on the south side of the house could easily be blocked off with a gate, assuming deer won't jump over it because it is a rather restricted space requiring that they negotiate stairs.

I've grown tomatoes and peppers in a simple grow box made from a laundry basket lined with a heavy plastic trash bag with holes poked through all layers for drainage. That was for a class project my son had in school, but worked fairly well. However, I would recommend that you give more thought to what kind of plastic the basket is lined with--something I will definitely look into before I repeat that project. I came across this article on grow boxes, which has some good and fairly simple ideas. Eventually, I hope to build an enclosed garden space somewhere on our property, but that is a project for another day. For now, it will have to be the south deck.

Two other resources that might prove useful for small space gardening are Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza and All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. I used the lasagna method last year and had the best tomatoes by far that I have ever raised. Growing in small spaces with raised beds means completely rethinking how you space your plants. Traditional rows are not necessary. I recommend both these books for small space gardens. They give you a whole new way to think about gardening.