Eldorado: People's Cooperative and School Community Garden

The new El Dorado School Community Garden is alive and kicking! We are currently welcoming new members. We are a large group of Eldorado residents who, in collaboration with the El Dorado Community School, Santa Fe County Master Gardeners, Earthworks Institute and the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC), are didicated to the creation of sustainable gardens and outdoor learning programs for students.

We have sculpted approximately 1 1/2 acres of land into a community garden. We are located behind the El Dorado School on school property accessed by the school parking lot and then a scenic walk on paths that lead to the garden. Organic gardening is encouraged and the entire garden is herbicides and pesticide free. We have a labyrinth, cactus garden, picnic area, individual beds and a communal garden. 

Personal plots are available until they are all taken. Fourteen new plots will be set up this year. The communal garden has the capacity of a maximum of 50 members. 

Garden Fees- Membership in the garden is $30 per year
Individual plots are an additional $30 each for a 4x8 foot plot
Participation in the communal garden is an additional $30
Each adult must pay the membership fee - children under 18 are free

For more information please contact Marilynn Jacobs
eldogarden@comcast.net 466-6707
or Eleni Cahn elenicahn@msn.com 466-1558

Click here to download the membership fees information.

Click here to download the members information and rules of the garden.

Stay tuned to this website for more information.

Dear Community Gardeners, 

We will have a final workday and clean-up of all the garden areas on October 11, 2009. If you haven't done it already, we'll put all the summer plants in the compost and move on! There is work in the entry areas, cactus garden and more so come and join us and help where needed. 

Following our work - at 1 pm - we'll have pizza delivered. Plan on bringing a side dish - drinks, salad, etc.

Please RSVP the number in your  group and the dish you will be bringing to Greg Bundrick by emailing gjugju@msn.com.

We are looking forward to joining with you to celebrate the season, get to know each other better, marvel over the garden's progress so far and share a meal under the New Mexico sky. Mark your calendar today!

Many thanks go to the communal garden group and John Moore who rendered the plan for the communal garden. After many meetings and site visits, the area has been set for the communal garden. We have 21 members at the moment. The plan is that we will double dig (as in John Jeavons Biointensive gardening method) and mulch most of the planting beds beginning April 18th. Some of the larger outer beds (corn for example) will be sheet composted and planted. 

Tom and I enjoyed a breath of fresh air (and a ton of wind) last Saturday(April 4, 2009) and we went to the Beneficial Farm Open House and tour of this very local farm on the Glorietta Mesa just above the Southeast part of the Eldorado community property off county road 51. Steve Warshawer has  been managing it as an off grid (solar powered) farm for 20 years. 

What we're seeing in our small village is truly phenomenal. Since our initial conversation on December 13th, 2008, we have established four working groups with a fifth coming into our pipeline:

Dear Friends,

Starting this Thursday night, we've got some exciting Eldorado Peoples Cooperatives meetings coming up this week! Here's the scoop for this week, starting Thursday night, April 2nd, through the 6th:

Hello Gardeners and Friends,
Over the last few months we have pulled together a terrific group of interested people who would like to participate in the Eldorado School Community Garden. Many of you have worked on committees to plan the garden, develop cost estimates, solve issues and give us the ability to build a great garden for our school and community.

 Eldorado Energy Cooperative (EEC)

Meeting notes 3/22/09:

Announcements and discussion:

Great news!  Several bills have been passed by the New Mexico Legislature that promote alternative energy and might help in our efforts.  These are 2 that seem to be the most relevant:

The salad I picked today - March 28, 2009. Yesterday we had 6 inches of snow and last night was 19 degrees! This is the joy of four season harvest.