Revolving Around Water

A few days ago while it rained off and on outside Stevan and I sat inside the tent to talk about farming plans this summer.  Our experiments can be divided into two categories- those happening in larger chunks in the field, and those in the garden.  The garden will be a collection of smaller plots inside the tree grove next to the canal, and larger plot on the west end of the field. Maybe I'm just having trouble transitioning from growing food in a 1/4 acre back yard to a 5 acre field, but I keep finding myself most drawn to growing things in sunny pockets among the mesquite trees next to the canal where things won't be as scorched in the summer heat, and will be fertilized by the mesquite.  I have fully planted out the garden I already started there, and am now eyeing a spot that is covered with a pile of spent agave fiber-- from moonshine making down the road-- to start digging next.

We are going to grow corn and beans and cover crops in the larger field experiments, and it seems there are really two seasons to do that.  The first one starts sometime around now through March or so, and the second one, with the monsoon in August. Traditionally, many crops were grown around here with the monsoons are no other irrigation, and I hope to experiment a good bit with that, using seeds from varieties traditionally grown that way.

Currently the field has lots of patches of bare dirt (eek!), skeletal remains of devils claw bushes and seed pods, and other dry plants I don't recognize.  There are also "vignorama," a type of acacia, sprouting all over the field. I have been resistant to pulling them, as they are nitrogen fixers and seem beneficial, but if we want to plow up the field(which I have mixed feelings about too), we are going to have to move them.  Stevan has been dedicated with the pick maddock and there are sizable piles starting, which today I collected for future garden fencing.

Looking over the brown dead field, east towards town

We are waiting for the "Juez de agua," (water judge) to get back to us.  Stevan was picking me up in Tucson the last time we were scheduled to water, and it only happens about every two and a half weeks right now.  We must open the canal and flood the field before trying to get the neighbors and their team of mules over here.  And we can only plant our first crop of corn, beans and cover crops if we manage to do all this in the near future, while of course, finishing the building.