By Janet Sellers
Our high-desert forest clime relies on its natural system of growth and decay to thrive. When we vandalize that system, we are the robbers of the soil and the forest, and also our gardens if we choose to have those. We have to create our garden soil for the plant life we wish to have that also tolerates our crazy weather changes and cold winters.
Gardening is like banking. If you invest in the soil, you will be able to have produce and flowers, but continual reinvestment is vital. If you’re constantly taking from the soil and not putting things back such as taking the pine needles off the soil but not putting those back for the soil for the trees, your deficit, your debt to the tree, will cause the tree and the forest to die. That is why many slash and mulch sites that support fire mitigation do not accept the pine needles. Pine needles are a proven mulch that keeps the soil healthy underneath, and even if we have prepared that soil for crops we’d like to grow, the pine needles do their job.
We planted a lot of beans last year in the Tri-Lakes Cares garden because beans fix nitrogen into the soil. Then we took the beans out and it’s ideal to leave the roots in and just cut the tops off after they finished flowering. Those wonderful bean roots will feed the worms and this year’s microbes will create rich soil that will support our plants. This is garden investing at its finest.
In October, we have sunny days and cool to cold nights. Cold weather brassicas will still do well and even overwinter, especially with frost cloth on hoops or in the greenhouse. At the Tri-Lakes Cares food garden, we are still getting tomatoes due to the protective fence and the brick building keeping things warm and deer-proof. I let several of the different plants go to seed (even one plant offers thousands of seeds) to save for next year. These seeds are acclimated to our area from this year, so the hope is they’ll make strong and viable plants next year.
Zombie vegetables
The garlic and onions release components when cut/injured to ensure animals don’t eat them. That’s why onions release the components that make you cry and taste super spicy if you cut them first at the root end. Cut them at the stem end and they stay sweeter and tastier. We can leave the bottom 1 inch of the root part and it will regrow in water or soil and make tasty green shoots. Try putting different things to root in some water about an inch or two deep in a glass or bowl. Lettuce, celery, onions, scallions, leeks, fennel, and garlic grow easily indoors in pots.
Janet Sellers is a dauntless lazy gardener letting Mother Nature lead the way for low water gardening, using our natural forests’ wisdom as the guide to success. Send your garden tips to JanetSellers@ocn.me.
Other Gardening articles
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Let’s protect our forests, soil, and gardens (11/2/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Cut and come again crops to plant in September (9/7/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Back to Eden gardening and what to plant in August (8/3/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – High-altitude hot summer days (7/6/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – The aesthetics of cottagecore, bloomcore, and cluttercore (6/1/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Garden—and lawn—success starts with dandelions! (5/4/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Garden helps, bloopers, and dangers (4/6/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – This month in the garden: soil, bird songs, and hummingbirds (3/2/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Colorado trades in grass for cash (2/3/2024)
- High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – The wonderful gifts of the pine tree (1/6/2024)