Late Summer Gardening in New Mexico

My family recently moved from Virginia to New Mexico. Of the many things I miss, my garden rates pretty high! I had built up raised bed of organic compost which produced really great yields. My mom reports to me that the strawberries are thriving, and she has picked cucumbers, tomatoes and beans that were volunteers from last year along with a crop of sunflowers and a few pumpkins on the way.

Unfortunately, with the move I didn't have a chance to make a garden at the new place right away, and then it got hot. I would have needed to set up a shade at least to keep any new plants alive. Luckily I did get a tomato and watermelon seedling at a beer and bees festival when I first got to town, and plopped them in an available space in the backyard. There is also a long established grape vine that is currently producing clumps of small but delicious green grapes.

Now that the rainy season is upon us (Thank the gods!) I wanted to see if it wasn't too late too plant some things. Turns out that you can plant cool season lettuce, radish, beets, peas, turnips, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts as long as you get them in by mid-August. There is still time for perennial herbs as well. The first predicted frost date for Albuquerque is October 28th, giving me 10 & 1/2 weeks. But if I build a cold frame, I can add at least a few more weeks to that. Still too short for many garden crops, but should produce some homegrown food by wintertime!

As far as flowers go, now is a perfect time to divide and plant irises and daylilies. It's also the time to begin preparing the soil to plant peonies in early September. Now is about as late as you can get away with feeding roses to get another crop of blooms before winter.