For those of you that are new to reading the blog, welcome. We live at 8,600 feet above sea level. The soil here is terrible and it’s really hard to grow anything because of the short growing season.
Last year, we planted perennials – Raspberries, rhubarb, asparagus and Jerusalem Artichokes.
Progress has been great. We have rhubarb from Maine that my mom sent. She sent three Fex Ex boxes full and we have close to twenty plants on the property. I experimented with planting it on different spots on the happy half acre. Loose soil is the way to go. I planted it on a few banks with hard soil and it didn’t do well. I’ve been harvesting stalks and the Mrs. has been making jelly.
As you can see, asparagus is coming up beside it. This is the second year for the asparagus. From my understanding, it takes about three years before you can really harvest any. Here, it may take five years.
The raspberries have gotten a slow start, but are spreading. They’re staying low to the ground and I don’t expect them to produce much. I plan on transplanting some of them to the abandoned lot next door this fall. I’d like to fill the entire lot with these perennials and I likely will.
The Jerusalem artichokes are coming along better than I expected. My mom mentioned that there were quite a few roots in the box this spring. They didn’t sprout until early June, but have made up for lost time. I expect that I will have to thin these in the fall.
As far as regular gardening goes, this year has been a flop. My mom planted when she was here in April. We got a foot of snow on Mother’s Day and it killed everything. I tried planting afterwards, but nothing took because of a frost in early June. So, for this year, we will continue to plant resilient plants and breed resilient animals.
As a side note, these are two of our round gardens.
The garden pictured above has old, rocky soil in it. I added some rabbit manure to the top in the spring, but we haven’t had much for growth.
This garden is five feet away. I removed all of the dirt from it last fall and added rabbit manure over the winter. The two beds receive the same amount of sun. This garden receives less rain, because of the tree behind it, but still flourishes. I’ve decided that it’s time to make some worm bins and start composting all of the rabbit manure we get. It will be our only way to be successful in gardening.
Pax Domini Sit Semper Vobiscum,
Mike Oscar Hotel
