How to Winterize Your Garden

What a beautiful time of year here in Taos! The trees are golden and the mountain peaks are dusted with the first sprinkles of snow. Along the park’s paths, wildflowers have turned to seedheads and migrating sandhill cranes may be seen in early morning fields. Each day offers a new opportunity to appreciate the land we call home.

Winterize Your Garden

As the days grow shorter and the air turns cooler, October is the perfect month to prepare your garden for winter using the 5 Healthy Soils Principles. Here’s how we do it at Rio Fernando Park:

• Minimize disturbance: This year we’re back to leaving our beds undisturbed, no heavy machinery and no tilling, just gentle care. This keeps our soil structure strong and reduces compaction for thriving roots all season.
• Armor the soil: Keep your beds covered! We let spent plants stay in the garden and add straw or shredded leaves wherever we see bare soil. This keeps moisture in, prevents erosion, and provides seeds for birds and winter homes for beneficial insects. (But, if you’ve struggled with pests like aphids or squash beetles, consider removing crop residue to help manage them next spring.)
• Living roots: Keep your roots in the soil. Even after your crops die back, their roots keep improving the soil, making pathways for water and air, and feeding hungry soil microbes all winter.
• Integrate animals: Stay tuned! Our Goats in the Garden program will be back in spring and turkeys too, for natural pest management.
• Other easy tasks: Flush your irrigation lines before shutting them off. Put row covers over hardy greens like kale, lettuce, and spinach; these crops often do well under a little frost protection into winter. Now is also a great time to plant garlic!

If you want more detail on the ecology behind these practices, just ask us!

Park and Program Updates

The recent rain has been a gift for our cover crops and last month’s native plantings! Thanks to the Xerces Society, we received 180 new native plants, half for our riparian area, half for uplands. Orange flags mark their new homes; say hello when you’re walking at Rio Fernando Park. These additions support our pollinator gardens and lower wetland restoration, where we continue to battle teasel and Canada thistle.

We kicked off a new Natural Resources Internship for local high schoolers! Ten students from across all three area high schools are getting hands-on education in ecology, land management, wildlife monitoring, leadership, and more at the park every week. This program is supported by the NM Outdoor Recreation Division’s Outdoor Equity Fund and LOR. It also backs our free workshops and the upcoming goats and turkeys program.

Our New Mexico Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) wrapped another great season. From building an horno to mapping new trails to even wrangling a neighbor’s loose goat, they’ve stepped up and grown in many ways. We submitted our grant to support next year’s programming, and hope to provide more workforce development opportunities for local youth and young adults.

Thank You for Your Support

We rely on the support of our community to keep these programs, events, and restoration projects going strong. If you appreciate our work and want to help us grow, please consider making a donation. Every contribution, big or small, makes a real difference for our gardens, youth programs, and conservation efforts. Thank you for supporting our mission!

Upcoming Area Events

🎃 Pumpkin Day at Rio Fernando Park, October 31, 12:30 to 3:00. Learn to roast pumpkins in a traditional horno, guided by Henrietta Gomez. Enjoy empanadas, roasted squash, and seeds from our educational gardens. From 1:30 to 3:00, join us for cider pressing, hay rides, bean threshing, pumpkin raffle, and volunteer opportunities as we winterize the gardens. Take home bean seeds for next year!

🌳Taos Talks: Trees as Climate Allies, October 28, 6 to 8 PM. Two-part community lecture series on tree care, eco-restoration, and the Miyawaki forest method. Part 1 at Revolt Gallery, Taos. Part 2 at Joy Yoga, Arroyo Seco.

🌲Mother Tree Food Forest Workshop, October 30 to November 1. Multi-day course on ecosystem restoration, agroecology, water retention, and indigenous land-stewardship. RSVP for details. Everyone is welcome.

🌎Conservation Workshop, November 10, 9 to 10:30 AM at Taos Land Trust, 410 La Posta Rd. Learn about conservation easements and funding for land protection.

🚜Questa Listening Session, November 12, 6 to 7:30 PM at Village of Questa Council Chambers. Join the conversation about the future of farming and ranching in Northern NM.
We hope to see you at Pumpkin Day! Fire up the horno with us, join in some fall fun, and help put the garden to bed for winter.

Have questions or want more info? Reach us at 575-751-3138. Happy October, neighbors!