Hello, Alamo!
As many of you know, one of my favorite free resources available to this city are the With Many Hands community gardens. Well, there are some really exciting updates coming this year!
Isabella Telles, also known as Bella or Bae, grew up in Alamogordo, but until 2 years ago resided in Colorado Springs.
When Telles landed here for the second time, she was in search of a way to help out her new-old community, and stumbled across the gardens. One little problem affecting this resource was harvesting in a way that left the rest of the plant unable to grow/produce.
On December 5, 2025, she and her partner Elijah Weatherwax presented to Dr. Ayman a project to solve a problem in their community as part of her computer science courses.
Project RootEd aims to alert our community as to which plants are growing at the gardens, how to harvest them so our community can get the most food from the crop using the appropriate gardening tools, and even ideas on easy meals community members can prepare with said plant. It also includes links where you can directly donate to the gardens.
Currently, the site is still under construction, but at the time of our interview in late February, Telles had uploaded several 10-30 second harvesting tutorials mostly with the help of our lovely Desiree Telab. The next step was to provide captions for each.
Mostly Telles is looking for longevity for her resource. Throughout this entire project, Bae has been building something she always planned to commit to long-term, so she will be the one to update the website each growing season for now.
Eventually, though, she hopes part of this maintenance work can be taken over by trained volunteers. If you have questions about the site, experience managing/updating websites, or even if you’re interested in learning how to, you can contact Telles by email or on Facebook.
“We eat really GOOD in this area, …but it (shouldn’t) cost you a trip to the doctor. (Personally) I’m taking my tia’s recipes and making healthier versions” utilizing more fresh ingredients. As part of this fantastic contribution to the well-being of our community, she is planning on sharing similar recipes with all of us (which I’m personally very excited about).
According to New Mexico’s Health Indicator Data & Statistics, up until the 2020 surge of Covid, diabetes has been the 6th leading cause of death compared to the US’s 7th. That same year, overall, heart disease was the leading. I don’t love talking about health in definites because there are so many factors involved, but one thing I can say without a doubt is that we have the least restricted access to food that is questionably nutritious. If we can find ways to satisfy our appetites that do use fresh and nutrient-dense plants, we will all be so much better off for it.
“If I am putting all this effort and time into building this resource, the best thing the community can do is utilize it.” Which, after over a year documenting resources in this city, I’d wager most of us want above anything else. Other ways the community can help is donating tools, soil, plants, seeds, and most importantly, use your word of mouth to inform the rest of your community about the gardens and about the supporting website (which will hopefully have barcodes at the sites).
I think I resonate a lot with Bae Tellez. Both of us have mobility-related limitations that restrict how we can show up for community. For her, building and maintaining this website is her labor of love to positively contribute to the community, just like helping occasionally water the gardens and writing this blog are mine.
I do not inherently believe the majority of my readership isn’t already involved in community work at the gardens, the Labor Hub, 100% Otero, etc. However, if you aren’t, I really hope your biggest takeaway from this post is thinking more broadly about *how* you can help our little community. If you can’t do physical labor like Bae, like me, there is still a place for you to help shape Alamogordo into a more supportive place to live. We all deserve that.
Salud.
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