The Chihuahuan Desert, long a corridor for trade between Mexico City and Santa Fe, New Mexico, is now home to five million people. The Rio Grande basin covers 172,000 square miles, crossing three U.S. states, more than a dozen Native American nations and five Mexican states.
Plant Answers. PLANT: March is a month to plant the gardener's favorite vegetables such as tomatoes, sweet corn and snap beans and pepper as well as cucumbers, lima or butter beans, cantaloupe, okra (if the soil has warmed sufficiently --70 degrees F. or higher), southern peas, pumpkin, squash, peanuts and watermelon.
They include beets, carrots, potatoes, Swiss chard and cauliflower. Delay planting warm-season vegetables until May. By midmonth you can plant beans, corn, cucumbers and summer squash. For those intolerant of the lightest frost, don't plant until the end of May, when the frost danger is well past.