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Garden dreamtime.
Feb. 21st, 2021 01:18 pmIt's been snowing on & off here all weekend, but when the sun is out, it feels WARM. That, plus the lengthening hours of daylight, has turned my mind to the garden.
Alan hasn't really done much gardening at his house - he had some cherry tomatoes & herbs in planter boxes on the back deck, but that's it. However, the meadow behind the house gets full Southern light, & is somewhat sheltered from the wind by pinyon pines all around its periphery. Alan is going to build me a big raised bed, completely enclosed by chicken wire to keep out the varmints (deer, chipmunks, Hobbes). B* asked: "What about bears?" I don't think chicken wire would even slow down a bear. Perhaps I will put up an solar-powered electrified wire like the one I put around my fish pond when Hobbes wouldn't stay out of it. A good zap might deter a bear.
I made my first purchases yesterday. From Camelot Gardens in Montrose, I bought:
Time will tell if I can make these into food.
This morning, I ordered four more packets of seeds from Seed Savers Exchange: hot peppers (2 varieties), butternut squash, & pickling cucumbers. I wanted to get zucchini but they were sold out.
Alan asked the Log Hill Village NextDoor community the date of last frost up here, & got a wide variety of surprisingly unhelpful answers. Online research was similarly vague - altitude makes SUCH a difference here, you can't search by ZIP code or anything so broad. I have decided that I will use June 5th as my last frost date. I back-calculated from there to get some seeding dates for my seeds. Indoors, I'll be starting the peppers in early April; tomatoes mid-April; cantaloupe early May; lettuce, squash, & cucumber in mid-May. The chard, kale, & carrots will be sown outside starting in late April. I am going to do batches of the peppers, tomatoes, carrots, & lettuce; hopefully, that will spread out my harvest times.
Alan hasn't really done much gardening at his house - he had some cherry tomatoes & herbs in planter boxes on the back deck, but that's it. However, the meadow behind the house gets full Southern light, & is somewhat sheltered from the wind by pinyon pines all around its periphery. Alan is going to build me a big raised bed, completely enclosed by chicken wire to keep out the varmints (deer, chipmunks, Hobbes). B* asked: "What about bears?" I don't think chicken wire would even slow down a bear. Perhaps I will put up an solar-powered electrified wire like the one I put around my fish pond when Hobbes wouldn't stay out of it. A good zap might deter a bear.
I made my first purchases yesterday. From Camelot Gardens in Montrose, I bought:
- 2 plastic seedling trays with covers;
- a grow lamp (I can't remember what I did with the grow lamp I had in Denver);
- 15 lbs./1.5 cubic ft. of potting soil;
- 9 seed packets: tomatoes (2 varieties), bell peppers, kale, Swiss chard, cantaloupe, sunflowers, romaine lettuce, & carrots.
Time will tell if I can make these into food.
This morning, I ordered four more packets of seeds from Seed Savers Exchange: hot peppers (2 varieties), butternut squash, & pickling cucumbers. I wanted to get zucchini but they were sold out.
Alan asked the Log Hill Village NextDoor community the date of last frost up here, & got a wide variety of surprisingly unhelpful answers. Online research was similarly vague - altitude makes SUCH a difference here, you can't search by ZIP code or anything so broad. I have decided that I will use June 5th as my last frost date. I back-calculated from there to get some seeding dates for my seeds. Indoors, I'll be starting the peppers in early April; tomatoes mid-April; cantaloupe early May; lettuce, squash, & cucumber in mid-May. The chard, kale, & carrots will be sown outside starting in late April. I am going to do batches of the peppers, tomatoes, carrots, & lettuce; hopefully, that will spread out my harvest times.
