High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – High-altitude hot summer days

By Janet Sellers

How the forest keeps its soil moist
Mulch and native flowers
Recipes for a cool afternoon beverage

“If you’ve never experienced the joy of accomplishing more than you can imagine, plant a garden.”—Robert Brault

How the forest keeps its soil moist

Mulch as ground protector: wood chips, pine needles, rocks, or pebbles?

Using innate, natural forest mulching wisdom, we can keep our plants thriving in hot weather. I’m not comfortable in this altitude with heat over 75-80 degrees, and neither are the food crop plants. Even heat-loving tomato plants wilt in the heat.

In the Tri-Lakes Cares Garden, we have nice, thick 4-to-6-inch-deep wood mulch from the Black Forest slash and mulch program (www.BFSlash.org). Even without watering, the garden soil underneath that protective mulch is moist and ready to support the plants. I wish it had a nicer name than “mulch.” Mulch is simply a protective layer of material spread on top of the soil. Organic mulch is from living material. In Italian, it’s “pacciame.” In French it’s “le paillis.” In Spanish it’s “mantillo.”

In the food garden, we water the plants once or twice a day in the hottest weather so nothing dries out and dies. That happened in the community garden when we just had early morning watering on the water timer. The lack of shade and intense heat wilted and killed many plants; even with pine mulch, we had to have some water late in the day. I admire my fruit trees for holding up under that high-altitude heat, but they need mulch, too.

Mulch and native flowers

Thankfully, most places only regulate lawn watering (lawns aren’t native and hard to have here anyhow) but not food crops. My grassy areas are not happy without rain, and I look to change to groundcovers. I had to get rid of a bed of weedy grasses, so I mowed them short twice and they gave up and dried out. Now I can rake the area and put in alpaca “beans” compost with the wood mulch or pine straw and grow what I’d like to see instead of grasses that need mowing. I look to transplant my bearded iris and some annuals there. Even planting flower seeds thickly, the plants can grow just fine amid the mulch. Asters make pretty plants and seem to adjust to low water conditions, as do yarrow, which come in many colors and reseed each year.

Recipes for a cool afternoon beverage

A mint sprig in iced water is refreshing. My new favorite is iced hibiscus tea (aka Jamaica tea in the Wild West). It’s kind of tart, so just adding a fruit slice changes the flavor profile with an exotic perk. I’ve added dried mango, pineapple (even canned) and orange slices for a change in flavor. Here’s to a cool one from the garden—cheers!

Janet Sellers is an avid “lazy gardening” enthusiast, letting Mother Nature lead for gardening wisdom in our Tri-Lakes high desert ecosystem. Share your garden tips and stories: JanetSellers@ocn.me.

High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – High-altitude hot summer days

Table of Contents

How the forest keeps its soil moist

Mulch and native flowers

Recipes for a cool afternoon beverage

Other High Altitude Nature and Gardening articles