Desert Victory Gardens

Inspired by empty grocery shelves and too much free time from sheltering in place, people rushed off to Home Depot to empty the shelves of gardening supplies. Many started their own "victory gardens." 

For you young'uns out there…Victory Gardens were made popular during WWII when people planted vegetable gardens to supplement their meager rations. The government promoted victory gardens as a way to support the war effort. They even offered a booklet to help first time gardeners. 

A peek at that booklet might be helpful.

1. Don’t start what you can’t finish. Before you start a garden, count the work involved even before seedtime and through to harvest. Abandoned gardens are a waste of seed, fertilizer, tools, insecticides and labor. 

Great advice. Wait! No mention of water? The writers obviously weren’t living in the desert during a 20 year drought and record heat wave!

When I think of Victory Gardens I think of my nana’s garden with perfect rows of vegetables. But nana lived on a farm in the Midwest where there was plenty of water. The gardeners of that age weren’t concerned about pollinators going extinct due to insecticides. They were blissfully unaware of the impact of climate change or fertilizer made out of fossil fuels. 

Check out number 7. Don’t let the pole beans block out the beets. In fact, don’t let any of the tall crops shade short ones whatever they are. Growing things must get sun. 

What!? They obviously haven’t watched their veggies wither and die in the scorching June sun. But I’m afraid many first time desert gardeners might.

There are lessons to be learned in the desert all around us.

Baby saguaros survive the harsh summer by sheltering in the shade of native trees like a mesquite or palo verde. They don’t call these trees “nurse plants” for nothin’. Our garden is shaded by two palo verde trees. Veggies grown under mesquite and palo verde trees also benefit from the nitrogen those trees fix in the soil. As far as those pole beans go, the Tohono O'odham demonstrate how the three sisters (beans, squash and corn) benefit from being grown together. The beans climb the corn and fix nitrogen in the ground, and squash leaves cover the ground to protect the soil and keep down weeds. After soaking beans for dinner, I'll plant a few under my young fruit trees for a nitrogen boost.   

Unfortunately, the giant eucalyptus tree that used to shade our entire backyard died this year. Now our baby fig trees suffer from direct sunlight. Taking advice from experienced Tucson gardeners, I've concocted shade contraptions out of tomato cages and some recycled shade mesh. No need to shade or water our native trees. Our desert hackberry, acacia, mesquite, and palo verde are thriving this summer with no additional city water. Yeah! The lesson from this is to plant native trees or heritage fruit trees that can take the summer heat!

One of our most helpful low-water gardening methods was inspired by early inhabitants in tune with their desert surroundings.

Back when the Santa Cruz River flowed year around, the Tohono O’odham practiced ak chin irrigation. When the monsoon rains came, the river would overflow washing nourishing silt over the flood plain. The silt would retain the moisture and replenish the soil. It would nourish the durable native seed crops they would plant in the floodplain. In a similar fashion we keep fallen leaves and apply organic wood chip mulch to nourish the soil and retain moisture in our garden and desert landscape. This traditional T.O. method also inspired the rainwater harvesting earthworks method of slow, spread and sink.

During the hottest month of June, before the monsoon season starts, I take my old fashion watering can out early every morning before it gets too hot and saturate the mulch around my young fig trees. If water rolls off the top of the mulch, I mix the water into the mulch with my hand and then pour more water into it. Using the watering can helps me keep track of how much water I use. 

NOTE: It’s even better to water them after it cools off in the evening so the water won't evaporate in the heat of the day. 

Pioneers survived droughts by treating each drop of water as precious. You may have seen westerns where the whole family used the same bath water. Gross! But we can use the same water twice. Dan and I carry our kitchen rinse water out to our hummingbird trumpets. A friend has an outdoor shower that waters his landscape. We use the greywater from our washing machine to irrigate our heritage fruit trees. 

We gleaned a great water conservation method from the Mexicans who built Tucson. They buried round ollas (unglazed terra cotta clay pots) in the ground and planted veggies around them. Water is poured into the opening on the top. That water slowly seeps through the pot into the soil. The roots of the plants wrap around the olla taking just the amount of water they needed. This saves a lot of water!

Nourishing the soil with compost, covering it with a thin layer of mulch and watering it with rainwater are desert gardening basics. To save water and have a healthy plant or tree, it's important to know how much water they require. Likewise, it's important to sow the right plant in the right season. Another tried and true technique is to plant short-season crops after the monsoons and use added rainwater to grow fast-growing favorites.

Sadly, it’s been a while since it’s rained in our yard. And the rainwater we collected in our water barrels is long gone. So I’ve had to resort to using more city water than I want to this summer. To offset that extra water use, I look for other ways to conserve water. Instead of a full shower, I often take what nana called a “spit bath” or sponge bath and then pour that water onto plants!

Nana would be proud.

VICTORY GARDEN RESOURCES:

Planting calendar for Tucson

Building Healthy Soil Using Cover Crops

Companion planting

Desert Composting

Worm Composting

Backyard Chickens 

Resources for Soil Amendments, Compost, and Fertilizers

Wildlife gardening

Rainwater Harvesting

ARIZONA VEGETABLE PLANTING GUIDE: A VISUAL GUIDE FOR LOW DESERT VEGETABLES

Get free seeds from Seed Library

Save on your water bill while gardening

Searching for Tucson's Lost Heritage

I was very inspired by the lectures on border issues at the Tucson Festival of Books. I went to the panel about ranching on the Arizona-Mexican border as research for a screenplay I am working on. I figured I would hear the usual complaints about “illegals” trashing their property or robbing them. (As I had from ranchers around Tombstone.) But I was delighted to find that in all their years of ranching, these three ranchers never had any problems with Mexicans. The female rancher shared how she always felt safe riding across her property alone. She reminisced about the old times when the cows from the Mexican ranchers would roam freely back and forth across the border. And how she and her cowboys would take coffee breaks with the Mexican cowboys. In the eighties, when the government passed stricter laws about undocumented workers, migrant workers were forced to cross the brutal desert in search for work in America. When they crossed their land, these ranchers gave them a meal or temporary work fixing fences and such. The ranchers had nothing but positive experiences.

Tucson's Presidio

Living in Tucson for 25 years, it’s hard for me to understand the current attitudes about undocumented Mexican workers. The Old Pueblo used to be part of Mexico. Mexicans were the first settlers. When the portion of Sonora that contained Tucson was sold to the US, the Mexicans settlers were given a choice between returning to Mexico and receiving a piece of land or becoming full American citizens. Many of these new citizens still had family across the border, so it was common to travel back and forth to visit them.

In the border town of Nogales, there were no walls between the Mexican and American side. It was treated as one city. Their annual Christmas Parade procession crossed the border. Later, hard-working Mexicans were hired as seasonal farm workers, so they were encouraged to migrate across the border. This migration has always been a part of Tucson’s culture. It’s as Tucson as apple chimichangas.

On another panel at the book fest, Peg Bowden, author of “Land of Hard Edges,” reminisced about growing up in the ethnically diverse, culturally rich Tucson. Later Peg told me that the ethnic breakdown was about 20% African American, 30% Latino, and 8% Asian. She heard Spanish and Mandarin spoken in the hallways of her high school. Mexican-Americans were active in politics and were revered. This got me thinking about my first impressions when I moved to Tucson. One of the first things I noticed was memorials with prayer candles and ribbons by the side of the road and altars to Our Lady of Guadalupe. I was struck by the incredible talent in the Latino community represented in art galleries, on murals, Borderland Theater Company, and Tucson Cine Mexico.

The first place we take out-of-town guests are our authentic Mexican restaurants such as El Minuto by the El Tiradito (the castaway) Wishing Shrine in Barrio Viejo. Then we head downtown to the restored Presidio near the Tucson Museum of Art to see the large Mexican nativity, El Nacimiento. The Mexican influence is evident in our cultural events. Tucson school children get two days off every year for rodeo days. 150,000 people gather for the annual rodeo parade to watch Vaqueros sitting high on their saddles, high school bands performing Mexican marches, and Mariachi dancers. 100,000 come out to experience the spectacular Dia de Los Muertos (The All Souls Procession). Mexican culture enriches our community. It is an integral part of our Tucson heritage. 

While researching Mexican culture in Tucson, I discovered that what had once been a thriving, vibrant community had been relegated to a museum exhibit. Before the urban renewal project of 1967 destroyed Tucson’s largest barrio, descendants of Tucson’s Mexican, Chinese and Jewish settlers still lived in their families’ traditional adobe row homes just outside of the Presidio walls. The Mexican barrios were tight-knit communities where family and church were valued. They gathered for holidays in the square. Everyone in the neighborhood knew each other and looked after each other. People shopped in neighborhood stores.  When Peg Bowden was at the U of A Nursing College, she did home visits on Convent and Canal Street. "People had chickens in the backyard and no electricity. They put their food on the back porch at night to keep it cool. They gave me warm tortillas fresh off the griddle when I visited. Great memories."

Politicians used the fact that some of the houses were ramshackle with backyard outhouses and that there was a rough neighborhood. They called the barrios a "blight" on the city. In the name of progress, the barrio was condemned to be replaced by a money-pit: a failed convention center and shopping center. This close knit community was torn apart, leaving some destitute. 

There are remnants of that vibrant barrio in what remains of the Historic Districts in Barrio Viejo including Teatro Carmen, the first venue in Tucson devoted to Spanish language productions and later used as a cinema, meeting hall, ballroom, and boxing arena. In Barrio El Hoyo there is a small garden and plaques that commemorate what used to be the Carrillo Gardens. The eight acres of garden boasted several small lakes and bathhouses fed by natural springs surrounded by cottonwood trees, fruit trees, and roses from around the world. There was a pavilion for music and dancing or skating. There was even a shooting gallery and a small zoo. Every weekend in the park was like a fiesta. 

When the barrio was gutted, Tucson lost much of its charm and history; in fact, its very heart and soul. In this time when politicians create an atmosphere of fear using undocumented workers as scapegoats, it’s important to remember those who built the adobe walls that became the Old Pueblo and their descendants who carry on our shared traditions.

Read more in my blog, "Footprints in the Dirt."  

From Pioneer Lady to Whip-lashin' Gunslinger

Jana Segal

The success of my historical reading actually lead to a "paid" gig (Well...$50.) with a Mystery Theater Group - the Candlelight Players. So I went from playing strong pioneer lady, Mary Ringo, to the rough, whip-lashin', gunslinger, Buffalo Lil. It had been 20-some years (about the same amount of time that I was married) since I had been in a play. After hearing about my performance in Tombstone, my friend Andy recommended me for the role (in part to distract me from my impending divorce.)

So while I was trying to develop my character and memorize my lines, my soon-to-be-ex would call several times a  day about the divorce. Sometimes the play was a distraction from the divorce and sometimes the divorce distracted me from the play. I was so tired from dealing with all my ex's crap, that it was like pulling teeth to even read the play before the first read through. But Andy, with his hilarious Speedy Gonzales accent, lightened things up. By the time we got the play on it's feet, there were glimmers of the old passion I had for acting before I got married. I had forgotten how much I loved to act!

I enjoyed discovering my character's voice. When I had problems distinguishing my character from all the other Western characters, the director wisely recommended that I look at Dustin Hoffman's tomboy sister in "Little Big Man." I watched her three scenes over and over until I got a handle on her vernacular and then I transferred her cadences to my lines. Then I recalled a similar character from Deadwood - Calamity Jane. I found her scenes on Youtube and got my character's attitude from her. Finally, I learned how to crack a whip. Now I was having fun!

But the best part was running lines with my two hammy sons. (They had been sorta distant since their father left the house.) Usually I help them learn their lines (which they get a lot easier than I do.) It actually helped me to bond with my 12 year old when he gave me my cues on route to his Live Theater Workshop class. He started hugging me for the first time in this life!

But the day before the performance, when I wanted to put the finishing touches on my lines, my ex tells me he is taking the boys for the weekend to prepare them to live with him every other week. I spiraled into depression. I read the same line over and over - it was meaningless.

I ended up running through my lines on the 45 minute drive to the resort and while we waited to go on. And there was plenty of time waiting around - first, for the audience to eat dinner and then to read the clues and finally to figure out the mystery. Once I got my lines, I had so much DOWN time that I started to get depressed again! I was afraid I wouldn't get it back up for the finale!

But it all turned out fine. I actually helped other people when they forgot their lines. At the climatic moment, when the shot gun sound effect didn't go off,  I was the one to say, "Bang!" and even got a laugh. In fact, I got six big laughs in all. Thanks to my buddy Andy.

http://www.candlelightplayers.com/

Preparing a Reading of a Historical Document

Jana Segal

I had such a good time performing the reading of Sharlott Hall's short 1880's story, “The Fruit of the Yucca Tree,” at the Tombstone Territory Rendezvous last year that I decided to do another reading. After some discussion about what would be a good fit for this group of Tombstone enthusiasts, historians and researchers, organizer Jennifer Lewis and I came up with the idea doing a reading from pioneer letters or journals from the Southwest. Jenn generously did some speedy research and found, “The Journal of Mrs. Mary Ringo.” It's the mother of Johnny Ringo's accounts of her family's wagon train trek from Liberty, Missouri to Austin, Nevada. I perused the journal. It included plenty of hardships and Indian attacks! We were set!

So, how do you cut a 38 page journal into a 4 ½ page script?

First, I read it through marking all the juicy parts and possible story threads that could be built into a compelling story. For instance, I marked all the passages about Indians - including the interactions with friendly Indians so I would have rising and falling action. I wanted to show some of the scenic beauty along the way and their daily activities without getting too boring or repetitious. On a second read, I included a strand about the sick cattle. I figured that the TTR audience would be interested in anything about the young Johnny Ringo (who later became a famous outlaw) so I marked the little I could find about him. The most dramatic journal entry was Mary Ringo's account of her husband's death, so I decided to set up his character by including whatever I could find about him.

I typed up all the journal entries I had selected – double spaced to have room for the comments when I “break down” the script. Since this is a historical journal, I decided to stay true to it by not changing Mary's wording. But I did cut sentences here and there to lessen repetition and boring details (like how many miles they traveled each day.) I tweaked and cut until it flowed as a story.

Time for some research -

I did a little research to find out Johnny's age at the time of the wagon trip (Johnny was 14) and the route they were traveling (from Liberty, Missouri to Austin, Nevada). I also found some facts about Johnny that I could use in my introduction. Johnny Ringo (also known as Ringo) started his life of crime by killing a man in the Mason County War. He later ended up in Tombstone embroiled in a conflict with Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp went after Ringo believing that he was one of the Cowboys responsible the murder of his little brother Morgan. My next step was to look up any old-timey words that I didn't know so I could interpret it accurately.

Next, I “breakdown” the manuscript.

I underline the words I want to emphasis and put slashes where I want to pause for effect. I mark different parts for tempo - for instance exciting passages that I want to read fast or sentences I want to sloooow down. I love it when I find a line I can YELL (and wake up that audience.) At this point, I practice it aloud and circle lines that are awkward to say so I can work on them. I might watch a period accurate movie set in the same time period to get a sense of the dialect. If I'm having trouble with some stiff dialogue, I might leave the page and try saying it in my own words to get more conversational.

Now I put on my actor hat, and re-read the journal for hints of who Mary was so I can flesh out her character. (For example, Mary Ringo bought a new dress along the way so she cared about her appearance. She also puts a positive slant on everything.) I might even write my own journal entry in her voice to really get in her head. I search for sections where I can add emotions and mark them. I ask myself how she would feel about a certain situation. Are there any clues about how she feels? I try to incorporate as many emotions as I can and contrast them. I work towards building the emotions to a dramatic climax.

How do I know when I've practiced enough?

I practice it until I know it well enough that I can look up from the page to the audience. At some point, I like to read it out loud to another person – so I get used to having an audience. This helps offset stage fright. If I can, I practice in the space to get comfortable there. It's really about reaching a certain level of comfort and confidence – then let me at it! I'm ready to perform!  

Delighting in Books

by Lorna Kerin Beall

When my daughter, Jana, was here we had a great time visiting the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Mansfield, Missouri. It was a beautiful July day, surprisingly not too hot. We enjoyed the museum, the grounds, and touring both homes. Two of my favorite things were the buggy they traveled to Missouri in and Pa’s fiddle. I also love the paper dolls of Laura and her sisters that I bought in the gift shop for my granddaughter’s birthday.

As Jana and I looked at the books, I was intrigued once again by how both Laura and her daughter, Rose, were writers. (As Jana and I are.) I have always loved Laura’s Little House books (especially since I also write children's books.) I’d recently purchased a used copy of Rose’s Young Pioneers that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Both Laura’s and Rose’s books were exciting survival stories where the protagonists

faced all kinds of dangers and challenges. (Often on the prairie.) The Little House books had more description. (Something I don’t care for in other books.) But seeing things through young Laura’s eyes was different. I ate it up like my grandma’s Finnish pulla. (cinnamon rolls.) Perhaps this was due to the fact that when Laura’s sister, Mary, lost her vision, young Laura became her eyes, describing everything for her. This enabled Laura to see everything in a new and fresh way. Sometimes with wonder and delight. And sometimes with dismay and hurt. This came through in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writing.

Though Laura and her family overcome all sorts of challenges and problems in the Little House books, and there’s plenty of plot, I feel the books are definitely character-driven. I feel I know spunky little Laura who got all excited over a tin cup, a stick of candy and a penny for Christmas.