Our City Farm doesn't have cows and chickens and pigs, but we do have animals. We care for the wildlife by planting food crops for them. We annually plant about 10 acres of sweet corn, chili, tomatoes, watermelon and other yummy crops for people. But, we also plant over 25 acres of the farm in annual crops for wildlife. They like milo, millet, sorghum, sudan grass, corn, wheat, and oats. There are both seasonal and year round residents at Los Poblanos, including flocks of migrating sand hill cranes and geese, and a resident Northern Harrier. We also have an ongoing program to plant shrubs, trees and hedge plants to provide permanent habitat for wildlife, especially songbirds. So far, we have over one mile of hedgerows planted along the edges of the fields. As these hedgerows grow, they will produce many kinds of berries and seeds that birds love to eat. They will also provide places for animals to build nests. As we expand our cities and suburbs, we need to be aware of creating places like this for wildlife habitat.

THE HEDGEROW PROJECT
Last Spring, RGCF, and Connie Brooks of NRCS purchased nearly 1000 trees to
establish one -mile of permanent hedgerows at LPF. With the help of New Mexico Volunteers for the Outdoors, Open Space volunteers, volunteers from Spring Storm, and other friends, hedgerows of Desert Willow, Gambol Oak, and Black Locust trees, were planted interspersed with shrubs such as sumac, Wolf berry, Nikin Cherry and currents. We also planted sunflowers along the same corridors. Songbirds delight in this kind of habitat as they do not fly more than 35 feet to feed. As they are also important conservation features, hedgerows were traditionally part of the farm landscape. They create windbreaks which prevent soil erosion. Only with the advent of industrialized agriculture, were the familiar borders of hedgerows between farmers’ fields seen as “unproductive space”, and were destroyed to provide more crop area. Several members of the community have offered to adopt the Hedgerow Project, and regularly visit the farm to weed around young trees and shrubs. We invite other folks to join Mindy Mayfield, Rodger Wies, Janet Novak and Howard Higgins in this endeavor. Call or email RGCF to join the team.