Giving Thanks…November is a time to take stock of blessings bestowed.  What are you grateful for?  How do you express your gratitude?  What do you overlook – or take for granted?  It’s a good season to reflect.

I want to express my deep and heartfelt gratitude to the Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners.  You all may (or may not!) know that I signed up to become a Master Gardener to try to figure out how to grow tomatoes… we had a gorgeous and quite productive vegetable garden in North Carolina, and I was quick to learn gardening in New Mexico is quite different.  I hoped for knowledge – which I received.  But I also got so much more.

I found friends.  I found a community who wants to learn.  I found people who want to practice sustainable gardening.  I found others who want to acquire a new definition of natural (NM) beauty.  And I found a place in a group of people who value giving back to our community.

Yes, my tomatoes are better (mostly because I am often gifted with starter plants by other Master Gardeners…) – but I am most grateful that my “roots” here have grown deeper and have been nourished in and by this community.  I cherish being a part of something bigger than anything I can do alone.

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Here’s what we’ve done, as Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners, so far in 2024:

1.  We’ve made over 1,700 direct contacts with the public, on our email helpline, at growers markets, at festivals and fairs!
2. We’ve escorted nearly 1,000 people through garden tours highlighting sustainable gardening practices in Corrales and Placitas.
3. We’ve raised over 30,000 pounds of food for people in our communities who experience food insecurity.
4. We’ve tended to at least 16 different gardens and projects that have a direct benefit to the residents of Sandoval County.
5. We’ve offered public classes in beekeeping, seed starting, chiles, landscaping with native plants, gardening in raised beds, the unique challenges of a NM Gardener, drip irrigation, preserving the garden bounty, winter sowing, and sustainability thus far this year.
6. We’ve volunteered nearly 6,000 hours for and in our county!

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Not that everything is worth money, but when you multiply 6,000 hours by the 2024 volunteer hour rate (as set by the federal government), this amounts to over $200,000.

To be certain, this is a group effort, undertaken by our nearly 200 Sandoval Extension Master Gardeners along with our 30+ 2024 Interns who graduate this month.

Thank you, to each and every one of you – you make a difference in our community, in others’ lives, and in my world.

Thank you.

-Meg

Autumn has just arrived, blessing us with cooler mornings, colors, harvests from the garden, and events and activities and fiestas and more.  This is one of my favorite times of the year, although it inevitably becomes one of the busiest as well (mostly due to a slew of family birthdays that must be celebrated).

I’ve been thinking a lot about the seasons lately.  As gardeners, we are probably fairly well tuned into the changing of the seasons – here it means the tomatoes that wouldn’t ripen because it was too hot are finally ripe and red or orange, the apples are dropping from the trees, the chickens have slowed down their egg-laying, and nearly all the hummingbirds have left town.  Pretty soon, the annuals will die and the leaves will fall – and, before we know it, perhaps it’ll snow!

I love living close to nature like this – it’s a privilege to see and experience this firsthand.  It is also a reminder that we, too, are a part of nature – we too experience seasons changing.  Aches and pains arise, children chart their own paths, friends move away, work changes, death visits.  The seasons come and go.  It’s like the Byrd’s song, Turn, Turn Turn – which was based on Ecclesiastes 3: “to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted…”

On my forays into the Bosque along the river, sunflowers nod to the sunshine across the Rio Grande – they’ve sprouted from the debris and death of other organisms.  Their cheerful ‘faces’ feed the bees and birds, and their time comes (…all too soon, in my opinion – I would have sunflowers year round if it were up to me!).

At the State Master Gardener Conference this past month, we were reminded that ‘our yards are universes,’ and to utilize sustainable practices that benefit the creatures with whom we live – including to ‘leave the leaves.’  This practice not only provides habitat and food for other organisms, but it also saves us time and effort – a win-win in my book!  For more ways to make your garden more sustainable, please visit this link on our website: https://sandovalmastergardeners.org/building_a_sustainable_garden/

What do the changing seasons of your garden look like?  And how do they inform and influence the changing seasons of your life and living?