Taos Land Trust

06/19/2026

The KINection garden is a multi-year and multi-partner initiative.

Our year 1 goals are to complete groundworks, landscaping and hardscaping, including a winding trail and a willow tunnel, irrigation infrastructure, and some benches for the space. We will plant perennial and annual dye plants including chamisa, snakew**d, sage, indigo, weld, madder, dyer’s coreopsis and dyer’s chamomile. Dogbane, nettle and flax will be incorporated for fiber arts.

Years 2 and 3 will expand to include playstructures by Baltazar Reed and new growing spaces. (We’ll share more about these initiatives next week!)

For their help with initial project design and brainstorming efforts we would also like to thank: Marissa Macias, Imagine Children's Museum, Taos Behavioral Health, Taos Chapter of the Native Plant Society, Jennifer Laabes of Taos Landscaping, and Scott Sutton. Thank you Rocky Mountain Youth Corps - New Mexico for providing community service hours and NM Youth Conservation Corps for funding our own summer crew. We look forward to watching as Carol and Baltazar’s work continues through the summer and fall.

06/18/2026

Since the opening of Rio Fernando Park, over 10 years ago, the community has been asking for a children's garden - a space to connect people of all ages with native plants, traditional growing practices, and creative play outdoors. We are excited to announce we have officially broken ground on the new KINection garden at Rio Fernando Park.

The KINection Garden will be a living artwork that builds soil, provides ecological art materials, and helps participants reconnect with the web of life through self-guided walks, children’s playscapes, a dye and fiber garden commons and waffle gardens growing the three sisters - corn, beans and squash. The garden’s programming will support the regenerative lifeways present in Northern NM. KINection Garden will provide a nourishing space for many species, including humans.

The garden project is run by our National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Carol Padberg, an interdisciplinary artist whose work brings together craft, agriculture and community. Padberg’s work has been exhibited in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. As an interdisciplinary artist, farmer, writer and researcher, Carol is dedicated to ecological art as a way to build back lost human capacities for connection with the web of life.

Thank you to the National Endowment for the Arts (via Taos Center for the Arts) and the U.S. Bank Foundation for year 1 support of this project and for getting us the funds to finally get it off the ground. We are deeply grateful for their support.

In the coming days, we'll be sharing more information about this project and its many collaborators. Stay tuned!

U.S. Bank

06/16/2026

Our new Soil Health intern has joined us for the summer from the University of Chicago to get hands-on practice with soil health management and scientific research. Today she is out collecting noxious w**d data, measuring the percent cover of different w**ds within 30x30-meter grids. We collect this data annually in both test and control plots to help guide our soil remediation and native plant restoration efforts. Welcome, Andrea! We're happy to have you join our team for the summer!

06/12/2026

We've got so much coming your way on June 27th! Join us for part of the time, or come for the whole day.

9:30 - 10:00 The Rio Hondo Artists' Residency (partners through the TCA's Community Arts Fellowship) will be leading an interactive climate- and art-focused community conversation. The dialogue will help guide their choreography. They do ask for RSVPs for this one, so check out https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/rhar-community-conversation-workshop-a-space-for-land to sign up.

10:00 - 11:00 Water Conservation Workshop! We'll be joined to talk rainwater catchment, cisterns, berms and swales. Land Trust staff will share examples of the water conservation initiatives we've been carrying out this year thanks to funding from

11:00 - 2:00 Our monthly community volunteering afternoon! Lunch will be provided free to all volunteers. Activities may include compost work, garden maintenance, or support for our new KIN-nection garden (more info on this fun project coming soon!)

06/09/2026

Come meet the goat herd at Rio Fernando Park!

Park visitors have been asking for it, so here you go! Join us on June 17th, July 1st, July 15th, and July 29th for a goat herd meet and greet. All ages are welcome. Please wear close-toed shoes.

No RSVP required, just stop by the park between the hours of 10 - 11am.

06/08/2026

Looking for some educational opportunities over the summer months? Join us on June 19th to design your own functional water mill and explore the role of simple machines at Rio Fernando Park.

Join us for a hands-on learning experience where students will learn about simple machines and how water can do work! Participants will go on a simple machine scavenger hunt, get hands-on with demos, and will participate in an engineering challenge, designing a water mill to help complete some important tasks on the farm.

Where: Taos Land Trust
When: Friday, June 19 from 1PM -3 PM
Who: Ages 7–12

Registration required
https://taoslearninglab.weebly.com/

Spots are limited to 10 students—reserve your place today!

06/04/2026

Today wraps up our orientation week with this summer's Youth Conservative Corps! We're looking forward to a full summer of trail work, landscaping, construction, gardening, and ecological monitoring. Lock in!

05/22/2026

With a busy summer right around the corner, we’re reflecting on our past year of ed programs with area schools.

Thanks to support from New Mexico Outdoor Recreation Divisions’ Outdoor Equity Fund and LOR Foundation, we were able to more than double our ed program numbers this year!

We hosted:
🌼1,009 youth program workshop attendees
🦋 63 youth workshops
🌲4 career exploration / work-based learning programs
🌱10 area schools and youth-focused organizations
👊13 paid internships / apprenticeships

Shoutout to all the teachers who get their students outside. We hope you enjoy your much-deserved rest :)

NM Outdoor Recreation Division LOR Foundation

05/13/2026

Mark your calendars for our May 30th workshop on how to grow food and soil at the same time.

With 35 years of experience growing vegetables in Taos, Melinda Bateman of Morning Star Farm is eager to share her experiences based on practical skills and current soil science practices.

Melinda will focus on what veggies you can easily and successfully grow here in Taos and how to improve your soil at the same time. Melinda will cover what season extension techniques to use, when and how to grow beginner crops, how to tell if you’re watering correctly and share soil improvement information.

1 hour presentation and 30 minutes for Q and A.

After Melinda's workshop, Taos Land Trust will host a volunteer afternoon with Nora at our own Rio Fernando Community Farm where you can get hands-on practice implementing some soil augmentation practices, including the application of Johnson-Su compost extract to garden soils. A lunch will be provided to all those who stick around to volunteer.

Guests are welcome to come just for the workshop, just for the volunteering, or for both. Please bring water, hat and gloves. Additional parking is available at Fred Baca Park.

05/12/2026

Here’s a snapshot of our presentation at the Native Plant Society Taos Chapter meeting last week! Thank you for hosting us and letting us talk all things land trust! Featuring baby Coconut and artist Carol Padberg.