Spring is here and I haven't posted anything in the past couple of week because I have been busy getting the garden ready.
Gardening in Colorado can be tricky business. The first frost is usually in September, and the last in May. The summer can be brutally hot and dry, or very cool. Nearly every year there is hail to contend with.
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| Glacial advance during hail storm of August, 2008 |
Additionally two of our neighbors have cottonwood trees near my fence line. Cottonwood roots make it nearly impossible to grow in the soil within the reach or their roots.
Over the past few years I have come up with a few ways to deal with many of these problems, which I will go over at some point. For now here's what I've been up to.
Mulch
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| Free mulch from the City of Fort Collins |
In the past I haven't been too good about mulching, except where I have used black plastic mulch. With free mulch from the city, one would be foolish not to use it. Here in the desert we must do everything we can to keep the moisture in the soil.
Irrigation
I can not grow in the portion of my yard that used to be designated as the garden due to the neighbors cottonwoods, so a few years ago I built these raised beds and moved garden soil to them. They have been great for a lot of reasons, but I have been watering them by hand. After a few weeks I find I just don't have the patience to do it properly. So this year I added irrigation to each planter.
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| I realized after putting it in that this wouldn't work. I needed a 90 degree bend. |
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| This should work better |
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| Beauty. That's much better. |
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| This year's Bok Choy, planted in March |
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| It should be a lot happier under mulch and with its own irrigation |
Berries
A friend posted this video on Facebook awhile back, and it inspired me to plant a berry patch. Apparently Calgary has a similar climate to Fort Collins.
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| My first berries. I will add many more soon. |
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| The "Before" of the berry patch |
My rhubarb will be happy that it will finally be getting some attention because of its proximity to the berry patch. I will talk about the trenches, the "swale trails" in future posts about the berry patch. Of course it involves a lot of mulch.
The Boys
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| Get 'em working young. |
Of course what I am really trying to grow in my yard are my two young sons.
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| Danger baby |
Hydroponics/Aquaponics
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| Last year's setup during the Mother's Day snow |
I built the hoop house in the portion of my yard where the cottonwood trees are. In order to continue to use it, I would have had to move it or figure out how to grow out of the ground. I decided to try my hand at hydroponics, and with some trial and error, I had some awesome success. It turned out to be a great year to do it as it was really cool, and many peoples tomatoes did not ripen until late September. I had ripe fruit by early August, most of which was eaten by my older son.
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| August tomatoes. Easy picking for a 2 year old. |
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| The day before Mother's Day, 2014 |
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| Mother's Day, 2014 |
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| Possible Aquaponics Experiment |
I grew peppers and basil in this tray last year on the same system as the tomatoes. I will try an aquaponics, deep water culture, system with this small reservoir for greens.
Other things to talk about
This post is getting long, so I'll cut it off here. I do want to talk about some things that Colorado gardeners might find interesting like:
How to over-winter spinach
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| Planted in September, 2014 |
Chicken Poop
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| Cleaning out the coup for fertilizer |
Beer
Probably not, but here's the first hops of spring
That's all for now. Enjoy and please let me know what you'd like to hear more about.
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