*With the caveat that nothing is ever done in Walti/Rutherford World.
Plants of all kinds will be front and center in our life
Six weeks after Karen and I moved to Playa Del Rey, CA from NYC in 1984, she had over 60 plants on our one bedroom apartment’s tiny deck. Hmm, I thought, this must be something she was into. Little did I know. Since then, I’ve learned there are three things that are important to Karen: (1) Me, Her Man. I’m just putting me first because I can: ). (2) Her dogs and animals in general; and (3) Plants of all kinds, but especially interesting, uncommon ones.
Over time, I’ve been a passenger on Karen’ journey of discovery of all things plants. I’ve been to every nursery within five miles of every place we’ve lived. I’ve seen her interests evolve. Her passion for cacti started with one little weird cactus we bought in a small nursery in Hermosa Beach in 1986. In our last trip to Thailand before COVID, we flew home with half a dozen new types of cacti in our luggage. The largest garden in our house in Mexico is a cactus garden. We’ve gathered a specific type of cactus (whose name I don’t know) from all over our New Mexico mountainside to plant a community of these cacti.
Vertical gardening Hollywood style
Our house in the Hollywood Hills presented challenges in finding enough gardening space. The entire backyard was a mountainside, so we built a retaining wall and filled it in with dirt for a lawn and associated plants. We carved out a little vegetable garden on the other side yard, complete with anti-animal netting (which didn’t work). We had two balconies that were perfect for more potted plants. Finally, we had a small front yard that went through many variations over the 16 years we lived there including ponds and water features. Still it wasn’t enough, so Karen went to school to become a California Certified Nurserywoman and went to work for Osh Hardware, managing their garden center. Karen even got a pickup truck (the “Tomato”) that took over family sedan duties.
Up, up up in Mexico
When we built our house in Puerto Vallarta, we had no land or yard, so we had to go up. Going up meant flower boxes and pots on balconies of all four of its floors. Karen created our first cactus garden on the top deck and we entered the world of bougainvillea growing (not as easy as one would think).
Learning to be mountain gardeners
Everything about moving to the mountains of New Mexico was weird and unknown, not the least of which is what to do with 5 acres of mountainside. Things we’d never had to deal with suddenly play a very important part: altitude (7300 ft), temperature (-10 degrees to 95 degrees), soil (very very rocky), and animals of all varieties (snakes, squirrels, fox, turkeys, deer, etc.), . This was clearly not going to be as simple as digging a garden next to the house.
I’ve come to recognize that gardening is about control. Control of the right soil. Control over the pests and diseases that will attack Karen’s children. Control of animals that are vegetarians. Control of the water supplied to each plant. Control of the right amount of pruning. And, finally, control of the temperature. Certain plants grow in certain areas because of temperature, altitude, and water. This was going to be difficult to achieve in the mountains.
The idea for the Hoop House sprung out of the 1500 gallon water tank the previous owners had dumped on the side of the mountain. The vision was to capture water from the roof, pipe it into the tank, and then use it as needed for irrigation in a non-existent greenhouse.
How difficult could it be?
We would need some kind of enclosed structure where we could control the temperature, provide water as needed, and keep away the gaggle of animals and pests awaiting to pounce. Building a real greenhouse was pretty much out of the question. Hail, high winds, and cost made a glass greenhouse a non-starter. We would need a “hoop house,” which is a poor man’s version using plastic wrapped around a curved top instead of glass. If it’s good enough for marijuana production, it should be good enough for us.
Who better to build a hoop house than a drugged-out plumber (DOP) with a track record of building marijuana scale hoop houses? Don’t say anything, it seemed like a perfect marriage when we listened to said DOP describe what he could design and build. We gave him a 50% deposit (this was a big big mistake). We started in October ‘21 and figured it would be done mid-November, early December at the latest.
First up was carving out the pad the hoop house would rest on. Randy and his Bobcat took a week or so digging out the mountain, moving boulders around, dumping dirt and gravel, and generally shaping the pad up.
As I watched Randy dig into the mountain, move boulders around like they were pebbles, and clear a perfect pad, I thought we could accomplish anything! Maybe we could make this place into the kind of place Karen would love. If we can move mountains…
Then the drugged-out plumber (DOP) and crew stopped coming. Calls and texts weren’t returned. In early December, with the bare outline of the Hoop House completed, we had to abandon ship and drive south to PV for winter/spring/summer. We were gone nine months and never heard a word from the DOP….
In October 2022 we got back to NoHo and this is what the hoop house looked like:
The New Mexico Way
There began a constant string of unanswered texts, phone calls, and emails to the DOP. Crickets. As a last ditch attempt, I pulled my Big Boy Mountain Man pants up and found the DOP’s house, way way south in the mountains, and decided to drive up confront him.
I learned the hard way that this is the norm in NM. When I would moan to our local friends about how difficult it was to get the DOP to do work, they looked at me like I just didn’t get it, and said. “That’s the New Mexico Way!” It’s no wonder the state is ranked in the bottom in HH income. Nobody shows up to work!
Ready for launch?
Karen is entering a brave new world: mountain gardening in an enclosed hoop house. I think first up will be a host of vegetables.
fw
Postscript: We’ve now gone through a couple of rain storms and our roof-to-gutter-to-underground pipe-to-tank-to-irrigation system works! The. tank is 1600 gallons full.
TA-DAH - Congrats on the HOOP House. Good things come to he who waits..........and waits..........and waits. Gregg