Donnie Pigford: Hello, my name is Donnie Pickford. I am the owner of San Juan Nurseries here in Farmington, New Mexico. I'm a third generation nurseryman. I would like to talk a little bit today about the joy we get from gardening and some of the tips on how to successfully garden. I will touch on the importance of soil health, beneficial insects, some gardening techniques and some specific varieties of plants that I think everyone should try.

As humans, we have a need for a connection with nature. This human nature connection is important for our mental and physical health. Being connected to nature has shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. Nature provides a calming effect, promoting relaxation and mental clarity. Gardening often involves physical activities and encourages a more active lifestyle. Many people find a sense of peace and fulfillment in nature, contributing to spiritual or personal growth. It is important to make your yard, your connection place with nature, creating a space that is interactive and draws people outside.

So what is interactive landscape? Well, it's a space that through creative design and implementation, produces human and nature interaction. Things like scented gardens, butterfly or hummingbird flower beds, bird feeders, sitting areas, fire pits, waterfalls or ponds. These are all places that draw you out into the yard and entertain you.

Most people will stop what they are doing and watch a butterfly dance through the yard. There is something about hummingbirds that make millions of people each year hang feeders and enjoy these colorful, yet sometimes obnoxious tiny little birds go through their daily routines. There is a peacefulness that comes from sitting next to a stream or a campfire.

For some, the joy is watching a flowerbed burst into color in the spring and then evolve through the season. Planting fall bulbs, which are bulbs that bloom in the spring, gives a beautiful show of color after a long winter. These are flowers that get us excited for a new season.

Adding annuals, perennials, and colorful shrubs to these flower beds gives us different bloom times and colors throughout the season. Just to define what these are, annuals are plants that bloom nonstop throughout the season. They are prolific, but they only last one year. Perennials, however, are blooming plants that come back year after year.

 Flower beds can be anything you want. Culinary herb gardens for all of your cooking needs with plants like rosemary, thyme, and oregano, scented gardens that stimulate the sense of smell with plants like chocolate mint, fragrant roses, or even an iris that smells like grape soda.

Butterfly gardens with plants like butterfly bush, milkweed and coneflower, hummingbird gardens with red salvia, zoshnaria and penstemon. I could go on and on, but the key is a well-designed flower bed will create interaction and entertainment.

So let's talk a little bit about soil, because in gardening, it's all about the soil. Soils are the key to success in the gardening. And understanding a little bit about your soil can have huge effects on your gardening success. Soils are different everywhere. They're different all over the country. They're different all over this town. And in many cases, soils might be different in different locations of your own yard. You can physically look at your soils and determine certain things about it.

Is it sandy? Is it clay, or is it rich, dark, organic material. Knowing the physical makeup of your soil is important. Sandy soils tend to drain well, sometimes too well. Clay soils, they hold water better, but sometimes too much and don't allow the soil to drain. You see there is this fine line between holding enough moisture in the ground so that the plants can stay hydrated, but not so much that it forces oxygen out of the soil.

Plant roots have to breathe. They require oxygen for cellular respiration in order to produce energy. I don't want to get too deep into this subject because it could be a topic of discussion all by itself. The main point is, good soil will contain some sandy loam. It will contain some clay. And it needs some organic material.

The physical makeup of your soil is fairly easy to figure out, and with the use of composts and other additives, you can start building a better soil. The chemical attributes of your soil, however, are not as easy to see. This is where a soil test is a good idea. These inexpensive tests can tell you the pH of the soil as well as the NPK.

So what does that mean? Well, let's start with pH. Soil pH affects how easily plants can take up nutrients. If the pH is too high, which is very common in our area, or too low, some nutrients may become less soluble and unavailable to the plant. Maximum nutrient uptake occurs when the soil pH is somewhere between six and seven.

This means that most plants do best in a neutral or slightly acidic environment. In most cases, we have very alkali soils and need to acidify them. Adding organic material, humic acid, or even beneficial bacteria can help lower pH. Soil sulfur is an acidifier, and when it's applied to the soil, it will lower pH into a more desirable range.

So let's talk a little bit about NPK. NPK is the three numbers that you find on a bag of fertilizer. These numbers are what make up the fertilizer you buy. And understanding what each of these numbers mean and what they do is incredibly important.

NPK stands for nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium. These are macronutrients that are essential for plants in very large quantities. Nitrogen is important for green vegetative growth. Phosphate is essential for health, root development and improved flower and fruit production and potassium, often called potash, helps plants with heat and cold durability, and overall plant health.

It is important to make sure your soils contain adequate amounts of each of these nutrients for plant health, but it is equally important to make sure they do not add too much. This is again, why a soil test is important, so you know what your soil needs and what your soil already has. There is a saying that is often used to describe the complexity of soil. That saying is a tablespoon of healthy soil can contain more living organisms than there are people on this earth.

This just gives you an idea of how much is happening in the ground. The beneficial bacteria and fungi in the soil play a vital role in plant health and overall soil ecosystem. They can help with breaking down organic material, assisting in nutrient uptake, improving soil structure, and much more. For organic gardeners, beneficial bacteria is essential in breaking down organic nutrients into a form that plants can consume. These bacteria can combat insects and disease, consume pollutants, and help mitigate stress from environmental conditions. There are many ways of adding living organisms to your garden. There are a lot of products on the market like compost teas, micro lifts, and earthworms, all of which can boost the bacteria and the fungi in your soil.

The liquid products can be applied to the soil by simply mixing with water and adding it around your plants. Earthworms can be purchased and simply released into the soil of the garden. Earthworms are an incredibly important part of the decomposition and the soil building process. Earthworms consume decaying plant matter, breaking down complex organic matter into much simpler, readily available forms.

The earthworms castings are loaded with nitrogen, phosphorus, and beneficial bacteria. As they burl through the soil, they increase aeration and drainage, improving the soil structure. Just to give you an idea of what they can do, one pound of earthworms can consume about three and a half pounds of compost a week. Because of these abilities, earthworms are very important in any garden. As I said before, soils are the key to gardening success. Your connection with your plants is through the soil. You nurture the soil and it will nurture your plants.

So let's move on to a subject that I'm extremely passionate about. Edible gardening. It is important for us all to be able to grow our own food, but I believe teaching children to grow is extremely important. Vegetables, berry and fruit gardening with kids teaches them responsibility, patience, and a lot about the natural processes. My kids and grandkids love gardening. We have had fun planting and harvesting vegetables, berries, and fruits for years. They love to harvest, prepare and eat everything from the garden.

Children are more likely to try vegetables that they grow and things grown in the garden, they just taste better than the ones that you can buy. Tomatoes bought from the store or on your fast food sandwich or burger just are different from the sun ripened tomatoes from the garden and tomatoes aren't the only one.

Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches are better. Things you grow at home, they just taste better and they're better for you. There are two different categories of vegetables. There's cool season and warm season. Cool season vegetables like peas, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, and much more can be planted well before the average last frost date.

They can handle some cooler weather and some frost. These vegetables actually taste better when the temperatures are cooler. Because they can get a little bitter as it starts to get warmer. These cool season crops can be planted early spring and again in the fall. Warm season crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and squash, and others cannot handle any cold weather.

These plants must not be planted until the chance of frost is gone, and in Farmington, our average last frost date is May 9th, but it varies every year.

It is important to lay out your garden plot. Certain plants do better when planted with other plants. This is called companion planting. For example, basil, when planted near tomatoes, actually enhances the flavor of the tomatoes and plants like marigolds, basil, and borage can attract beneficial insects such as ladybugs, which prey on pests. Marigolds and nastursums will actually deter pests like aphids, cabbage moth and harmful nematodes. Of course, any plant that attracts bees is essential for an edible garden.

According to the USDA, 35% of our food crops are dependent upon bees. We must take care of our bees. Planting pollinator gardens are beautiful and extremely beneficial to gardening success. Then of course, we have plants that should not be planted near each other. Beans and onions are a bad combination. As the onions can actually inhibit the growth of the beans. You shouldn't plant squash and pumpkins together as they can cross pollinate, potentially producing undesirable fruits. Tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, and peppers, they all belong to the same family and are prone to similar diseases like blight. Planting them together can increase the risk of the disease spreading. There are so many varieties of vegetables available in your garden. I believe it is important to try new and different vegetables each and every year.

We can find ourselves planting the same plants each year because we are familiar with them. I think a small percentage of the garden plot should be dedicated to planting something new. Each year, I am pleasantly surprised by a different variety of tomato or cucumber.

You never know when you're going to plant your new favorite plant. Most importantly, just get out there and garden. I would like to thank San Juan Regional Medical Center for the opportunity to talk a little bit today about gardening, and I would like to thank you for joining us on this podcast. Now just get out there and grow something.