Garden 8 – “The Hoop House Garden”, owners Savannah Boone and Hawkeye Salmansen
Savannah is a passionate gardener and traveler. She learned gardening growing up on the island of Antiqua with her family. Hawkeye is the handy man and carpenter. He is the building talent part of the team responsible for construction of their landscape and garden structures. Savannah loves growing all types of plants from tropical specimens such as orchids and other flowering beauties to vegetable plants and fruit trees suited to our New Mexico climate. She loves passing on her gardening skills to her grandchildren.
Savannah is interested in new cultural practices for increasing yields on fruits and vegetables. Her vegetable gardening practices were dramatically influenced ten years ago by the outdoor hydroponic raised gardening techniques of German horticulturalist Mittleider. She recently developed an interest in growing small, easy to harvest fruit trees on their land after reading Grow a Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph.
You can explore several garden areas and learn about different gardening practices at this property. A brightly painted artist studio and porch are the back drop for hanging tropical flowering plants. Savannah planted a perennial in-ground garden in her back yard in memory of her late son. Follow the pathway through the back gate to tour their hoop house garden structure which shades and protects raised garden beds filled with soil and straw bales. Savannah grows a variety of beautiful vegetable specimens. The vegetable bounty is at its height in late summer, but there should be early varieties for view at the time of the tour. A hand built A-frame green house, which was featured in the Mother Earth News in January of this year, allows for an early start on vegetable and ornamental plant growing. Master Gardner volunteers and the owners will be available to educate the tour guests on hoop house, raised bed, and straw bale gardening techniques.
