Start Next Year's Garden, Now!

Summer is a good time to plan ahead for a garden that will provide benefits next year and beyond. Trying to start a garden from scratch in early spring is not a good idea for a good harvest that year. It is much better to prepare the soil and let it begin the biological processes for a good growing season next year. In the mountains, however, there is more to think about than soil. Start now and you will be ahead next spring.

Trying to garden at 7,000’ and above is really like being at war with the natural environment. One has to plot and plan strategy while doing the physical effort to defeat an enemy as unpredictable and unstable as the weather. There are lessons learned and each lesson usually has a crop failure involved, it becomes maddening! Just when you’re sure all chance of frost is past, bam, all of those carefully nourished seedlings get hit. Conversely, it is very defeating to have the mature and productive plants killed by an early autumn frost. There is a short no-frost window here that does not allow common food gardens to be completely productive, you really have to work for it.

Continued below...

A cold frame is essential frost protection for folks getting started and wanting to provide the household with fresh “homegrown” tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and like foods. It is small, so the work and frost protection can be manageable. The same principles can be expanded up to a full size greenhouse.

This small area requires “intensive gardening” and demands a highly enriched soil mixture. Tilling soil components into the garden area is good, but it is far better to dig a deep pit and mix the soil and enriching components completely as the pit is filled. This rich and deep soil allows plants to be placed very close together. In a good intensive garden, sunlight never falls on the soil once the plants are half mature. It is quicker to buy bags of soil components and mix them in the bed. If you have top soil from the pit, mix it in but refrain from having clay in the bed.

For information on composting and soil building see here 

Continued below...

Intensive gardening works because enriched soil guarantees the plant’s roots have a perfect soil environment in all directions. The hole shown here is two feet deep. I built another foot of depth by making a 2x12 board rectangle around the hole. Use 90 degree bend, steel bolt-through reinforcement at the corners.

If you’re interested in water conservancy, line the side walls, the raised boards and the soil below with black plastic. Leave the bottom of the pit free to drain.  This prevents the water from migrating to the side and evaporating up and out and away from the roots.

Continued below...

The wood rectangle forms a strong and stable foundation to build a large cold frame on. Use upright light weight planks at the four corners and then box them in at the top. Cover the top with a greenhouse glazing. The sidewalls are covered with inexpensive tarps cut to the correct height. Using the tarp’s grommets for spacing, put screws in the wood and leave an inch or so remaining to hang the tarp on. On warm days the traps are simply taken down and replaced at night. Hint, when the tarps are cut they fray; this can be prevented with a thin layer of waterproof glue immediately put on the tarp’s cut edge.

Continued below...

The frame shown here is tall enough to protect most mature plants in the fall.  After all possibility of frost in early summer is past, we take the frame down by simply removing the upright planks and setting the top aside.

This deep bed and cold frame provides an inexpensive and workable solution for fighting the whims of nature in our high altitude environment.

Continued below...

For more information, click here and here.  Pagosa's own experts, www.growingspaces.com can help as well.