Silver Springs - Gardening Info (Las Vegas, Reno: house, schools, organic)

[Kmom246]

Greetings ~

Recently moved to Silver Springs. Looking for info, advise on gardening in the high desert. Most books I've found are for the Las Vegas area - which is a totally different climate.

Thanks you. KMom246

[nvtashak]

You're right, most of the NV gardening books are useless for our area.
Occasionally the Reno and Carson City Master Gardener's columns are useful, but they are basically not organically oriented.
When I moved here, I contacted the Agricultural Extension office and got a thick free packet of info--again, basically not organically oriented.
Silver Springs Library, just off Hwy. 50 before you get to the schools, has some good garden books, including Rodale type stuff from the 70's, which I find more useful than many later books. It also has Backwoods Home, Organic Gardening sometimes, and a new thin little pamphlet type monthly publication--Leigh ordered it and probably remembers the name better than I do.
We often are a short season area. You can start seedlings indoors soon, but remember last frost average date is midMay so be careful when you harden off and transplant warm weather stuff like tomato, pepper, eggplant, squash, etc. First frost may be anywhere from midSeptember to midOctober.
Alkiline soil. Compost, compost, compost.
Recurrent late spring frosts may do in fruit tree blossoms--ag office said expect fruit to survive on average one year out of seven.
It is possible to overwinter cool season crops under reemay frost netting. I have been doing so the last two years, and still am taking lots of greens to our local food bank at 3250 Hwy.95 So, phone 577-2456. (They distribute on Thurs. so it is nice if you have extra to donate to get it to them on Weds.)
There are some certified USDA organic and other organic growers in the area. I'm in Stagecoach, and just got Certified Naturally Grown.
Don't know much about flower growing here. Hollyhocks and sunflowers work well. Asian greens work well. Sometimes we get squash vine borers. Sometimes, actually most of the time, calcium (add dried milk) deficiencies damage tomatoes.
Mid-July through midlate August are not prime growing season if, like last year, we have ten consecutive days of over 102 degree temps. I'm yearning for shade netting myself.
Roots (carrots, beets, kohlrabi, turnips) and greens (Swiss chard, mizuna, bok choy, wong bok, Michili cabbage, sprouting broccoli, cabbage, all kinds of kale, spinach) can be planted Sept. through early Nov. under frost netting for late fall and winter production and overwintering. I do a last crop or two of radishes then also.
Snow peas seem hardier than regular green peas, and I hope to plant some every two-three weeks soon. I'd wait a bit longer to plant lettuce and nonhardy annual flowers. Probably won't do spring crop of roots and greens for another month or two, and even then under frost netting.
So far our winter (unlike last year) has been pretty mild.
It is possible to grow a lot here often with minimal water use (except for summer when water use will triple or quadruple or more), but it takes more than a year or two to improve this stony alkiline soil.
Oh--we just got a Silver Springs FreeCycle group underway; if you are interested, SSNVFreeCycle.
Happy dreaming over the seed catalogs!
Tasha

[nvtashak]

Email if you have more questions.

[Kmom246]

Thanks for all the info!

My teenage son has been doing some community service at the food bank - since I've already have 30 some odd 3" to 8" tall tomatoes, if even a third of them survive to fruit, I am imagining we will have plenty to share with them. That's the hope, anyway. (I keep forgetting I'm not in zone 9 anymore, thus I started my tomatoes in JANUARY! Well, I have a bad taco bell addiction, so most of them are now potted up to their necks in the giant sized taco bell soda cups under grow lights.)

After looking at the sand 5 ft deep last summer when they were trenching our electrical, I had desided I'm not even going to TRY to amend the sand for the veggie garden - going to do the raised bed thing and import dirt.

My migrations around the country seem to coinside with "the worst winter in years" - I believe someone told me that last year was the worst in, like, 90-something years. When I moved to Savannah, GA, thinking I'd be safe from the cold in The South - it was the coldest winter on record in 20 years and it SNOWED.

Thanks so much for all the info!

KMom

[horsechick]

Contact Pastor Marilyn Martin (Fernley Free Methodist Church) She enjoys giving info to newcommers about gardening. You'll be thrilled with her wealth of knowledge. She created the meditation garden behind the WigWam restaurant on main street. Really nice lady...

[Sinkhole]

I have just recently moved to LV and I would like to know what is the growing season in the area?

[Pugmum123]

I got a lot out of your postings. I wanted to thank you. We have been here for 6 years, and are still learning. Our tractor is broken, and the part we need is not available--even online. So we may not get our garden in but I am still going to plant my seeds, in fact I started tomatoes this week, but our greenhouse is semi-enclosed, so they mey be living in there. Is there a source of manure in Silver Springs, or close? Is it cheap? Maybe we could barter for a trailer load? Our soil is totally dead. We put compost in/on our garden plot, and it seems to blow away, or be sucked into oblivion. Within a week it is back to hard, dry alkaline ummph. We really need a garden this year, my husband retired last August....and like most people it gets harder to keep up with bills, gas, propane, etc. I don't get around much, I have a balance problem, and arthritis, and my husband does what he can. He started to put in a drip system, and a faucet near the garden.
Thank you, again.

[manuerqueen]

Growing in Silver Springs is wonderful challenge compared to growing in Reno and Carson City, as Silver Springs has often presented a one month longer growing season. This year, along with the past five years, I have had great success growing my heirloom tomato and pepper plants (27 tomato plants and 20 pepper plants), as well as the old standards, all types of squash (even the 105 day winter squash), cukes, eggplant, strawberries, My herbs have always done well and onions and garlic are always a pleasent surprise (potatoes did well one year). Pumpkins are a cinch! Gardening is a challenge here but the bounty has always been plentiful. As always, compost, compost, a lot of manure and frost covers for early plants and late plants. A mini green house or cold frame is helpful for starting plants along with frost row covers. I found the cold frames work better because of the wind factor we have. Anyway, I have found no problem growing flowers of many kinds (cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, asiatic lillies, tuberose, morning glory, daisy, roses, butterfly bushes, etc. So if you have an imagination and patience, you can grow a beautiful garden in Silver Springs