Tour des Jardins et les Coops
This Sunday I took the Home Grown New Mexico Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour. Since I took the tour by bike I decided to call it the Tour des Jardins et les Coops. The tour was an easy loop of less than 20 miles and great way to spend a morning in Santa Fe. I was very impressed by the garden landscapes created by these generous and welcoming Santa Feans. I learned quite a bit from the gardens and I've been inspired to continue expanding our little garden.
Here some of my notes from the Garden and Coop Tour:
- Six out of Seven gardens on the tour have chicken coops. How many urban chickens are there in Santa Fe?
- We need more rainwater catchment! I just doubled our rainbarrel capacity and it's only a fraction the size of the cisterns I saw.
- Many of the home owners are garden designers, landscapers and the like. Now, I don't feel quite so embarrased by our humble garden.
- Mulch and compost, mulch and compost, then more mulch and compost.
- I would love to have more space to grow ... everything! But how many acres do I really want to maintain? One of the gardens was on a small city lot like ours and it looked very manageable.
- Several of the homes had Solar Photovoltaic or Solar Hot Water panels. Many of the tour homes have enough solar PV to fully offset their electricity usage.
- Every garden needs shade, under a tree or a structure, for people and plants.
- Several of these homes and gardens are ready for a feature article in Sunset magazine!
- Thanks to the Santa Fe Master Gardeners for staffing the tour and answering so many of my questions.
- You never know what incredible landscapes hide at the end of a gravel road or behind a garden wall in Santa Fe!
As a picture is worth a thousand words, here is my Santa Fe Garden and Coop Gallery.
 Flowers & Pear Tree |
 Bird Sculpture |
 City Garden with Raised Beds |
 Playin' It Cool travel trailer |
 Tracking PV Array |
More Info:
HomeGrownNM - Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour
