As part of their study of local historic Puebloan agriculture, students in the Aldo Leopold Charter School’s Garden Crew recently grew over 100 heritage corn, bean and squash seedlings with seeds they obtained from the nonprofit biodiversity organization, Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson, Arizona.
The plants were distributed a few weeks ago to GCAS members and other growers throughout the Silver City/Mimbres Valley area, and now they are all in the ground. (Some local gardeners must take countermeasures such as livestock fencing, to protect these fine young plants against the deer, rodents, birds, and other hungry critters who peacefully coexist with us but are always waiting to take advantage of any nutritional opportunities.) At the end of Southwest New Mexico’s growing season the ALCS students hope to get feedback from all these gardeners and will track their individual results. The students have also asked successful gardeners to save some seeds from these crops and return them to the ALCS Garden Crew for future heritage plantings.
Thank you, ALCS Garden Crew, for sharing your work and helping our communities preserve biodiversity in essential food crops!