Peach-like, pineapple-colored, purple, nearing to black, golden, vermilion, cherry-red and hues of green; round, pear-shaped, striped, smooth; small as pearls and as large as grapefruits, tomatoes make our mouths water and our hearts beat faster.
It’s time to plant them.
Plant heirloom tomatoes. These seeds have been saved and passed down for generations. Preserving genetic diversity in [...]
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FARM STAND MARFA APRIL NEWSLETTER
Let’s Start A Farmers’ Market!
As Farm Stand Marfa gets underway for the new season and this newsletter embarks on its fourth year, I want to celebrate the family of growers and craft-makers and community builders who comprise the market. Beyond the producers and the visitors who show up every [...]
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FARM STAND MARFA NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 26
A September Blow and Balls of Bees
This morning a blow is coming from the northeast that makes me feel like I’m in Maine. Every so often here in the desert a sea wind seems to blow fresh and fierce across the struggling grasslands. The sea- like wind holds a prehistoric [...]
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CACTUS LOVE
A few weeks ago I went searching for the pitaya, the strawberry cactus, in the Terlingua Ranch area, southeast of Marfa, with a band of modern age friends and the botanist, Patty Manning from nearby Alpine. The pitaya produces truly the most delicious fruit you can imagine. The apricot- sized fruit when ripe tastes [...]
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FARM STAND MARFA NEWSLETTER JULY 25
THE SKY IS FALLING and THIS WEEK IN THE GARDEN
High on the Marfa Plateau in the Chihuahuan Desert gardeners rarely find themselves working in wet gardens. But this week’s almost daily rains have transformed our vegetable plots and flowerbeds into dripping, humid habitats suited for mushrooms and orchids. So far [...]
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TREE DREAMERS
As a gardener I can’t imagine living in a tree. I like to feel the earth in my hands and under my feet. But when I hear of young activists living in trees to save forests from being cut down, I admire their outrage and the extreme form of their protest. I imagine them [...]
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HOW TO BE INDEPENDENT
This weekend celebrate your independence by keeping it local. Saturday morning begins with a trip to the farmer’s markets. Take your own bags so you don’t have to ask your farmer for a plastic one. Enjoy eating breakfast at the market while you stroll through the tables, stopping to visit with your [...]
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Every day is a good day to start a garden. In just a few hours you can prepare a planting bed and seed it. Within a week arugula, radish and lettuces will be up and growing.
Site a bed for growing lettuce and greens in a part of the yard that receives some shade during the [...]
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Farm Stand Marfa Newsletter Nov 22
Putting the Garden to Bed
A warm day following a chilly night is a glorious time to be out in the garden, soaking up the sun and putting the garden to bed.
Even a chore as simple sounding as cleaning up the garden has more than one school of thought. One involves [...]
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TENDING THE LAND AND THE RIVER
Sandra Harper
The Rio Grande/Rio Bravo and Rio Conchos watersheds nurtured a widespread sustainable indigenous culture of intertribal life. This piece based on scholarly works and field-based research examines the pre-history, history and the present-day life in the La Junta area.
“Indian embers were sparkling in the American night [...]
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