Gardening in Circles: Give Peas a Chance

By John Mattingly

Shutting down a garden is like saying goodbye to a good old friend who visited for the summer, a friend who challenged you, fed you, worked you, taught you the upside of patience and sharpened your powers of observation and contemplation.

You knew the friend had to leave, but in the course of the season you tossed that onto the compost heap. It seemed the friend would always be there, connecting body and soul through Earth and sun.

As the end of September approaches, a gardener becomes attentive to the cool feel of the morning air, and takes measures to keep the friend around a while longer, and makes an effort to preserve the friend’s bounty to bring light to the dark days of winter.

In the Valley, frost-free days after mid-September are a gift, even though the heat units are few. Many nights the temperature drops to 33 degrees and then bounces up to 60 in the first hour of sun. This can be good for curing some crops, but inevitably reminds us that our friend is packing up, getting ready to go.

One consolation is that much of the work of a garden continues in all seasons: working with the aftermath and thinking about rotation and expansion options for next year.

One of the farmers I learned a lot from in my youth asked me, “When does next year begin?”

Thinking it was a simple calendar question, I said, “January first.”

He put a rough, gnarly hand on my shoulder. “Son, next year starts right now, in the fall of this year.”

He went on to explain that the way you treat your stubble and your ground in the fall makes all the difference next spring.

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Down on the Ground with the Garden

By George Sibley

May and June are dominated here by the garden. Gardens, I should say; when we moved into our Gunnison home 20-some years ago, we were unimpressed with the expanse of bad lawn that came with it, and we resolved to annually convert 50 square feet of bad lawn to garden space. I lack my partner Maryo’s experience with plants, and undoubtedly some of her dedication – I mean, she grew tomatoes in a community garden in Chicago right by a bus stop, which involved defensive measures like painting the tomatoes with a flour mixture to make them look diseased to random hunter-gatherers. But I signed on as the project heavy-lifter, being no lover of monocultures, and now we have little gardens – some kind of growing together – all over the yard.

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About the Cover Artist – Susan Spohn

Salida-based artist Susan Spohn describes herself as a gardener, recreating in paint the magic she feels when in the presence of flowers, critters and nature. Painting memories, visions and whimsy, her favorite medium is oil paint. She paints on wood panels using bristle brushes, painting knives, turpentine and varnish. Her paintings of textural garden scenes …

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From the Compost Bin – October 2009

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

We have moved into autumn and frost will be visiting our gardens.? It’s not yet time to put it all to rest – there’s still a little more work to be done before winter.

?When frost threatens, it is wise to be prepared.? The first frost is often followed by warmer weather.? Be ready to cover tender, immature crops such as tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, squash, cucumbers and okra with newspaper or blankets.?Covering them at night, combined with the warm autumn days, will allow the produce to come to full maturity.

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From the Compost Bin – September 2009

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

By this time of year you will have been harvesting your garden produce throughout the summer and hopefully, not too soon nor too late. Harvest timing is learned by experience. It is determined by what tastes best to you. Sample your vegetable produce at various stages of ripeness and you will learn the right harvest time for each vegetable to suit your tastes. Here are some general harvest rules.

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From the Compost Bin – August 2009

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

Summer Solstice has passed and it is now the warmest time of the year. It’s difficult to remember the cold, dark days of winter – back when we were pining for the warmth of the summer sun.

By now you should be enjoying some of the fruits of your gardening labor.

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Coming to a Backyard Near You…

by Susan Tweit

What if you could walk out into your yard and pick a sun-warmed tomato, dripping with juice, for lunch? What if the hardest part of deciding what to cook for dinner was choosing from the box of just-harvested produce delivered to your door?

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From the Compost Bin – July 2009

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

My sister gardens in the southern United States and complains about the water. “We’ve had too much rain,” she says. Obviously, this is not a problem in our arid Colorado bioregion. Our challenge is to keep enough water on the garden at the right time during the growing season.

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From the Compost Bin – June 2009

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

At long last it is June, the last frost date and time to plant the garden.? Keep an eye on the weather at this time of year, as it can change quickly.? My farmer father always said, “If you don’t like the weather in Colorado, just wait ten minutes.”?

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From the Compost Bin

(Tips for high-altitude gardeners)

by Suzanne Ward

The quiet of the winter and the warmth of the inside fire, which was such a blessing in January, feels too confining in spring.? We long for the warmth of sunshine after the dark and cold of winter.? It is time to plan the garden.? My Aunt Virginia, who will celebrate her 100th birthday this month, once told me, “If I can’t dig in the dirt and plant something, it is not spring!”?

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A garden full of weeds

Column by Hal Walter

Gardening – July 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

THIS YEAR, for the first time in many, I’ve planted a garden. A good portion of the seeds I’ve planted here at 8,800 feet are actually near descendants of weeds.

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Oil and Compost

Column by George Sibley

Gardening – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE HOT NEW ITEM on the home front is a shredder. Not a shredder like the Enron folk or various government agencies have used to cover their tracks, but one that you shovel leaves, grass, moldy MacDonald wrappers, soggy Shoppers and other rakings into, and then everything gets chewed up into little bits that either get sprinkled directly onto the claypan that passes for dirt around here or put into one of two backyard compost bins where we also dump a lot of garbage from the kitchen. And within a few months, that mess miraculously turns into dirt of the sort that has potential for growing things.

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More growing resources

Sidebar by Martha Quillen

Gardening – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

With Wann and Tweit advising, you should be able to get your garden up and blooming, but both books are in black and white. So you may well want one of those gorgeous, full-color manuals that shows brilliant pictures of garden vegetables, and landscapes and flowers, too.

Or you may want an illustrated book about something specific like Xeriscaping, or herb gardens, or easy-care shrubs.

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Going native isn’t necessarily the easiest way

Brief by Central Staff

Gardening – May 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine

Things are starting to turn green, which inspires thoughts of planting seeds to produce more greenery.

But that also means spading, raking, hoeing, weeding, and watering, which leads to backaches, sunburn, and expense.

So the thought arises: Why not seed some native plants? Since they grow here anyway, they should thrive without much attention, and still produce some blooms and greenery.

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