Tierra Lucero
The Home Gardens Project: Food for Life
Tierra Lucero’s Home Gardens Project (HGP) provided individuals and families in need with the means to grow fresh organic produce in their own backyards — even in the harsh climate, rock-hard soils, and short growing season of Northern New Mexico.
Teaching people to grow their own fresh vegetables is the most effective long-term solution for poverty-related malnutrition and hunger, and to establish meaningful local food security.
New Mexico consistently ranks highest in food insecure households in America.
Chronic food insecurity leads to malnutrition, which can cause variety of diseases now skyrocketing in our community, including diabetes, cancer, and childhood learning disorders.
The Home Gardens Project installs free backyard vegetable garden packages for low income, elderly and disabled people in Taos County, as well community organizations and schools.
The basic garden package consists of:
- Three 4 ft x 10 ft raised beds (some raised double-high for the disabled)
- Soil/Compost
- Seeds
- Starter plants
- Trellis
- Square-foot growing grid
- Season extension system
- Automated drip irrigation
- Compost bin
- Water catchment (where possible)
- Three fruit trees
- Gardening manual
- Gardening class
For three years:
- Seeds and starts
- Fertilizer
- Seasonal gardening newsletter
- Personal instruction
Benefits of the Home Garden package
These gardens, when properly cared for, can provide a small family with beautiful fresh produce all through the growing season, some Winter food storage, and will last for many years.
- The raised beds and imported soil mean that anyone with a sunny space in their yard can have a garden and do not need to develop good soil of their own.
- The square-foot gardening method offers a simple, effective means of gardening on a small scale, doing away with the need for extensive thinning and weeding, and allowing for ease of succession plantings.
- The season extension system: wire hoops, row covers, and cover clips, allow for growing earlier and later in the very short Northern New Mexico season, and help keep the high spring winds, hail, and hot desert sun off the tender plants.
- The automated drip irrigation greatly conserves water, and allows wonderful freedom for the gardener who can leave for work, or for the weekend, and not worry about their plants being watered during the day.
Home gardening provides real food security, greatly enhanced nutrition, and an increased sense of self-sufficiency for the gardeners and their families.