Gardening At High Altitude

1989, June. My first vegetable garden. I made several mistakes. There's no animal-proofing, I mulched with hay in an open garden, and I didn't water. One night in August, a huge herd of Elk came through and ate every single plant. Not a great start to my high altitude gardening.

1991, June. I built this bed on a southern hillside and never could get anything to grow in it, no matter how much I watered. It was just too hot and shallow. As you can see, I also experiement a lot. Here with no mulch, black plastic mulch, and straw. A neightbor's cattle escaped and ate every single iris. I was not happy.

2103, July. My best garden ever. The weather was perfect and, by now, I had learned a lot about Gardening At High Altitude and dealing with critters.

2012, June. It's extremely hard to get seeds to sprout; the hot sun dries the ground down about 4 inches no matter how much I water. I use these old boards to cover my seed beds and check every day for sprouting. You can use cardboard or newspapers or anything that will shade the soil.

2102, June. All types of peas grow exceptionally well with our cool summers. Plant your peas in a wide trench and space the seeds about an inch or so apart. Peas do not mind being crowded and you'll get a greater yield this way.

2012, July. Oregon Sugar Pod peas starting to bloom.

2103, End of July. Potatoes grow very well up here also. The best method I've found to get consistently high potato yeilds is to mulch the bed when there are two leaves showing and to keep the bed well watered. Potatoes grow best in a slightly acid soil.

2012, August. Cabbage, brocolli, cauliflower, and peas grow great. This year, I also had tomatoes ripen in the garden as well as cucumbers, yellow squash, and delicta squash.

2103, End of August. This was a great year for squash. Here are yellow summer squash, delicata squash, a hybrid from seeds I collected, and a pie pumpkin. The pumpkin did ripen and made a great pie.

2013, September. Several kinds of beans also grew great this year. Here are green beans, pole beans, and yellow wax beans. I canned most of them.