» Resources

Below are links to materials and resources such as handouts, books, and websites we’ve used or referred to at our events.

Notes from Mary Carson:

Vic, at 304-5680, 722 Sunset Rd SW (south of Bridge), has the blue 55-gallon barrels for $20, also 5-gallon buckets (white) for $2. He usually also has metal barrels. The blue plastic barrels are food-grade. Call first, he goes out of town to pick them up.
Gardeners.com has the siphon and also a variety of ways to trickle drip irrigate, putting water only where needed.
The public library at San Mateo and Comanche has Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond: Volume 2 Water-Harvesting Earthworks available to borrow [editors note: several Transition ABQ members own this book and would lend it too!]; this book has detailed explanations of how to estimate how much rainwater you can capture, based on the size of the building.
There are regular ads on Craigslist for very large used containers for water, from various people; prices vary. These would be the ones I mentioned that folks up here use to haul water; clear plastic reinforced with heavy wire, a large cube thatfits in the back of a pickup.
And if anyone is looking for leather work gloves for women, Western Mercantile (across from the Post Office in Tijeras) has women’s leather work gloves in small, medium, and large for around $11 per pair. (I had a pair with me on the table.)

Instructions for determining soil texture, like we used at the 3/2/16 event
Introduction to getting and understanding a soil test, with contact information for testing labs
List of mostly free downloads covering a huge range of garden, farm and soil topics, focused on sustainable agriculture
Some soil health fact sheets
USDA soil resources page
Composting –

Sheet mulching—
Gaia’s Garden author Toby Hemenway has a bomb-proof sheet mulching method.
Cover Crops
- Document of all Cover Crop info from Valerie
- Free downloadable copies of Managing Cover Crops Profitably and Building Soils for Better Crops.
- Printable guide to cover crops, videos, mail ordering
- Articles and crop specific growing information

Local organizations to join:

ABQ Hours Exchange – Join our local timebank and start exchanging services without money.
Banking on Central New Mexico – a group working to create a local public bank. To get on their email list, email Vern & Vicki.
Keep it ‘Querque – Your advocate for local small businesses.
The Buy Nothing Project is a hyper-local gift economy. See groups in Albuquerque and join the one where you live, and if there is no group there yet, you can start one!

Websites with great info:

Books for the truly interested:

“Debt: The First 5000 Years” by David Graeber. A major argument of the book is that when the imprecise, informal, community-building indebtedness of “human economies” is replaced by mathematically precise, firmly enforced debts, widespread impoverishment and violence are common results which only a few societies have managed to escape.
“Local Money: How to Make It Happen in Your Community” by Peter North. Transition Books, 2010.
“Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity” by Michael Shuman. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012.
“Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered” by Woody Tasch. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010.
“Creating Wealth: Growing Local Economies with Local Currencies” by Hallsmith & Lietaer. New Society Publishers, 2013.

Info from Johnny’s Selected Seeds about winter farming.
If Eliot Coleman in Maine can grow through the winter we can too.
Resource from Mother Earth News on zone specific growing.
Rio Grande Community Farm (RGCF) will post registration information for our summer workshops and classes, some of which pertain to winter season extension, or if you’re needing more space to grow please consider joining our community garden.
This link has some information about what’s seasonal. In the Abq area, I think the Los Ranchos market is the only winter one.
Locations and phone numbers of our NM Co-ops can be found at lamontanita.coop. There is also an archive of board study topics that an interested person might find useful.
You can download for free the bible of cover cropping. It’s really more for farms, but I think home gardeners are really missing out to not take advantage of cover crops. Much faster than composting alone to build soil.
www.hoopbenders.net
www.buildmyowngreenhouse.com
Jeff Ball’s 60-Minute Vegetable Garden (schedule for a year-round garden)
Elliot Coleman’s book, Four-Season Harvest.
Leandre and Gretchen Poissons’ book, Solar Gardening. (The Poissons’ book puts more emphasis on permanent covers to beds, like fiberglass/plastics permanent removable lids on the beds.)

Folder/packet pages
Transition 101 (20 other Transition sites) (Mark Juedeman)
Scarcity or Abundance: Your Choice (Bruce Milne)
Psychology of Change (Maggie Seeley)
Inner Worlds (Mark & Maggie)
What Can Communities Do? by Rob Hopkins
Personal Preparedness by Chris Mortensen
(We read several quotes from it – 3 sources of water etc.)