Ruben and Kelly Cedeno & family

Cerrillos, NM

Santa Fe-Poaque SWCD

The Cedenos are a small, family-based growing operation with a semi-moderate sized garden. What they harvest in excess is divided among their village elders and traded with others in the village.

Through composting the Cedenos are regenerating their soil, and by using organic compost they are feeding the microbes in the soil. To conserve water for their operation, they harvest (capture) their water via roof run-off into an underground cistern, using a timer to pump out the water at 3 – 5 minutes per day.

They apply compost as mulch, mixing it into the soil. While they don’t have enough land to rotate crops, they do switch their selection of crops, depending on anticipated weather conditions. This year they will plant onion, five varieties of peppers, tomatoes, carrots, and herbs, avoiding plants that require a lot of water. They do not use cover crops. Instead, they keep the garden covered in the winter with a spread of fall compost and replenish it with spring compost.

During the past several years, the Cedenos have been challenged as they’ve experienced dry, hot winds and low rainfall amounts. As a result, they’ve had to haul supplemental water from the county, as their cistern cannot keep up and replenish their storage tanks. During the winter months, they rely on snow yields to supply them with the moisture needed throughout the year. Currently, they’ve experienced less snow as well. So, to capture what little moisture they get, they are working to continually regenerate the soil and replenish the topsoil.

In May of 2022, the Cedeno family reports to be in the midst of some challenging times as they are in the same drought situation as the past several years. Their planting season has been extended beyond May with the hopes they will have their crops planted by the second week of June. The current weather situation includes winds of 50 – 60 mph, hot during the day, colder in the evenings, and no rain. With the drought this year, they estimate their water hauling will be 1,000 gallons per week just to keep up, and they will use shade cloth around their planting surface to protect the crops from drying out and blowing away.

Updated June 2022