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Native Seeds
Seeds of Change
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Gardening is no gentle pastime out here. Besides the obvious lack of rainfall that makes this place a desert,
there are temperature extremes, blazing summer sun, and varmints galore. My first spring here the
round-tailed ground squirrels
had a feast of corn sprouts and seeds. The following summer I trapped 6 of them in 2 hours, with no obvious reduction
in species activity. I tried chemical weapons of mass destruction to no avail. My domestic plants now live inside a
heavily-fortified Green Zone, defended by electric wire.
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 After burying quarter-inch wire mesh a foot into
the ground and stringing 500 Volt electic wire an inch above the top, now all that get in are the birds, lizards,
grasshoppers, and ants. I can't tell if the ants get more than the grasshoppers or if its an equitable
distribution amongst them. The corn does OK now with one planting in late February and another in late August.
Potatoes do OK in fall and early spring, squash survives everthing but the intense summer sun, I've some luck
with beans later in the fall.
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  In comparing my great grandparent's diet with mine I see the greatest difference lies in diesel fuel and refrigerated transport. They raised cows. Fast food shacks dispensing McMac cow burgers hadn't been invented. They raised chickens. Tyson Foods didn't yet dominate the market. And rabbits ate their gardens.
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2008
Maize that I planted on the last weekend in February sprouted by March 9. Leaves came out on the cottonwood trees by
April first and by the fifth the mesquite trees sprouted new leaves. On Sunday, April 6, I noticed yellow blossoms on
the creosote.
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