April Beauchemin, program specialist at the Chile Pepper Institute at NMSU, talks with KC Counts about their annual fundraiser and offers some basic tips for beginning gardeners. Here is a transcript of their conversation:
KC Counts:
As people are gearing up to learn all about what to do to grow a great garden this year, how convenient is it that the Chile Pepper Institute is holding its plant sale fundraiser? Tell us about it.
April Beauchemin:
Yes, absolutely. So we grow not just chile peppers for this plant sale, but also tomatoes, eggplants, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, herbs, and flowers. We'll also have onions on hand this year, as well as some ornamental landscape plants.
KC Counts:
I mean, I'm just looking at the list of some of the, obviously there are many I've never heard of, but one that caught my eye was the garden sweet burpless hybrid cucumber. What is a burpless cucumber?
April Beauchemin:
That's a great question, and I don't know, [laughter] but I looked it up. So these were actually selected by Danise Coon, our senior researcher. She's been working with the Institute for well over 20 years now. And so she likes to go through the seed lists and go, yeah, I like that one. And that's kind of how we make the decision of what we're growing. I do know that that cucumber appears to be kind of like an English slicing type and the other one looks like it's more of a small snacking cucumber.
KC Counts:
Very interesting. I mean, because yeah, when people think Chile Pepper Institute, we think all chile all the time. But that's not necessarily the case. Tell me what the goal is. This is a fundraiser. And so what are the funds directed towards?
April Beauchemin:
So the funds, all the funds that are collected at the Institute through the fundraiser, as well as any sales at the gift shop, all go back directly to the Institute, primarily to fund the student employees. We hire NMSU students. They do work in the greenhouse, work in the field, as well as work in the actual Institute headquarters. So they're all gaining a real-life, hands-on experiences and putting on the plant sale is part of that, dealing with a high volume of customers, answering a lot of questions about not just chile, but all the other vegetables and produce that we're selling.
KC Counts:
Folks can log on to the website, which is...
April Beauchemin:
Our main website is cpi.nmsu.edu and there's a link in there that says online store and that's where you can learn more about the pre-sale or the pre-order for the plant sale. The cut off for the pre-sale is March 1st so that we can get everything planted in time and started. The pickup is on April 13th, but the actual plant sale that we normally hold is going to be 3 days this year. Normally it's just two days. It's April 16th and 17th from 8 A.m. to 5 P.m. and then we are going to open up on Saturday morning for whatever remaining plants we may have and that's going to be from 8 to noon on Saturday, April 18th.
KC Counts:
Have you taken part in this plant sale in previous years?
April Beauchemin:
I have. So I actually found out about the plant sale just driving by one year. I saw the sign outside and I stopped by. It was in the middle of the afternoon on Friday and there wasn't much left. And then the next year I tried to be there on Thursday and again there wasn't much left. It's definitely one of those things that a lot of people that know about, but when I started working with the Institute and got to see it from the other side, I've been making these changes very slowly, adding the pre-sale to accommodate people that can't necessarily be there for the plant sale or who were, like me, coming too late and not being able to get the chile plants or the squash, zucchini that I wanted. But we're also increasing the amount of plants that we start to try to accommodate the amount of people that continuously come on the second day that aren't able to get the desired varieties that they were seeking.
KC Counts:
Now, are you yourself a gardener?
April Beauchemin:
I am. Yes, I do. I love plants. I love growing produce. I love educating people about produce. And that's part of why I love my job at the Institute is because I get to talk to people about our favorite food in New Mexico, which is chile.
KC Counts:
So, you know, that's great because more and more people, especially maybe starting with COVID, right, when more people than ever before, people who you had never before started a garden, maybe gave it a try. What are some very basic tenets that you would share with people in terms of just three things to do and three great plants to get a lot of produce out of?
April Beauchemin:
Well, I will say definitely knowing your yard, knowing your growing space. If you have to do pots or raised beds or in the ground, knowing your soil, amending the soil here in the southern part of the state in the desert, we need organic matter in our soil. soil. So adding compost, adding manure, whatever you can to add that organic compound into the soil is absolutely necessary because our soil doesn't have a lot of organic matter. Knowing where the sun rises and sets and where the heat of the day is going to hit in the summer. Peppers, chiles like heat, but every plant...
KC Counts:
And heat begets heat, does it not?
April Beauchemin:
Yes, it does. It does. Yeah. The more stressed the plant is, the hotter the chile will be. But there comes a point in the summer where the plants will just kind of stop producing or slow down production a lot when it's just way too hot. And that's usually over like 90 degrees. So even planting your plants in a shaded area or a place that's shaded in the afternoon, or that you can put up a shade cloth to cover the plants and protect them in the late summer afternoon sun, that's definitely very helpful. And then of course, watering. Making sure that the plants receive enough water, but not too much because too much water will not encourage your chile to set fruit. It'll just create a lot of foliage. And any chile that does set won't be very hot because it'll think it's not at risk of dying. So, and then as far as for production, I will say one plant off the top of my head that does great out here is squash. If you know anybody that has a squash plant.
KC Counts:
All my friends have prolific squash plants.
April Beauchemin:
Yes, the squash does great. Tomatoes do great except for in that middle of the summer super- hot heat of the sun. And then the chiles, of course, they do great besides that super-hot middle of the summer sun. But for yield on chilies, I always recommend the Heritage Big Jim or Sandia Select. Those are two of our medium, medium hot varieties that we actually re-released as the Heritage and the Select. And they have increased yield, increased heat, and increased flavor compounds in it. So they're even more flavorful than what you would normally expect from a Big Jim or Sandia.
KC Counts:
All right, well, gardening season is here. And we would like to thank you, April, for coming in to talk about some of the varieties of plants people can find at the annual chile sale. Anything that I haven't asked you yet that you think is important for people to know?
April Beauchemin:
We always like to suggest that people bring their own containers to the plant sale because it's very rare that someone walks out with just one or two plants. It's usually much more than an armful. So bring a box, bring a bag, bring a container, and then you can definitely stock up on all the plants you need for your garden.
KC Counts:
Good tip. All right. Well, happy planting and stay in touch.
April Beauchemin:
Thank you so much.
You can learn more about the fundraiser and the Chile Pepper Institute right here.
