High Altitude Gardening

Living above 5,500 ft altitude comes with its pros and cons. 

Pros: b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l views. Gosh it’s pretty here. There are so many outdoorsy things to do right in my own neighborhood.

Cons: the weather. 

Seriously, that is a con large enough to fill the category on its own. Living so close to the rocky mountains creates drastically changing weather patterns. Upon moving here, I often heard people tell me “If you don’t like the weather, just wait 5 minutes.” It can change from summer weather to winter weather within a day here.

And THAT my friends, is why we are moving. Article over.

Ahahaha, kidding, kidding. (Okay, we are planning on moving at the end of this year, but it is not due to the weather! More on that later, promise.)

I was quite used to being able to look at the weather forecast for the week and know what to expect. Boy was it a learning curve when we moved here to Colorado. Now I check the weather forecast more than I check Facebook! 

Gardening in high elevations comes with its own unique challenges, mostly due to the ever-changing weather patterns. Or lack of patterns? With such a short growing season, we as gardeners really have to push the boundaries when it comes to sowing seeds, hardening off transplants and proper care in order to get a harvest before first frost. It’s tough, but not impossible!

Wildlife

Lions and tigers and bears…oh my! 

Okay, so no tigers. But we do have mountain lions and black bears that live nearby. But depending on where you are located, some common wildlife you may see rummaging around your garden are raccoons, deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, among other various small rodents. And don’t forget the birds! Although I have learned that birds generally do not do a ton of garden damage compared to the other critters. 

Keeping deer out of your garden usually just means you’ll need to fence it off. Sorry, there’s not much more to tell you if you want them to stay out. Raccoons, rabbits, and squirrels of all types can be kept away by using something like hardware cloth to protect your plants. Or you can build covers for your raised beds like I did here.

For underground digging creatures, you’ll want to bury hardware cloth under all of your raised beds, fruit trees and bushes to protect their roots. 

It always seems like we are battling against some type of creature that wants to eat our food, so we try to plant plenty of extras to make up for the fact that wildlife of some type will likely eat at least 20%.

Oh HAIL No

Oh man oh man oh man. I have had reoccurring nightmares about the hail storms we have been through here. And legitimately have a little PTSD reaction happen when I hear it start storming.

Imagine you’re asleep one night and suddenly awoken by the sound of glass shattering all around you. You go out and see baseballs being thrown at your car. 

Oh wait, it’s just giant ice balls falling from the sky.

No big deal, I didn’t need a roof, let alone a garden. Or a car. Or windows…

Starting in May and extending through July, we typically enter what is called monsoon season here. Very high risks of dangerous storms and deadly flash floods. What seems to happen is the morning starts out nice and sunny, then by early afternoon clouds start forming on the mountain. You blink and it is pouring rain and the thunder is telling you to take cover and put plywood and buckets over anything you want to save.

Drought

On the flip side, if it’s not monsoon season, it stays very very dry. Depending on where you live, this can mean high fire dangers as well. 

There are a few ways you can work with the lack of moisture here.

Install rain barrels

Here in my county, it is legal to have two 55 gallon closed containers for collecting rainwater. Be sure to check the ordinances and laws for your own state and county, as they will likely differ from mine.

Drip irrigation

By installing drip irrigation or soaker hoses instead of relying on overhead sprinklers, you are directing the water right where the plants need it: right at the roots. This way there is far less water waste from evaporation.

Water correctly

There’s a wrong way to water?

Oh yes, yes there is. Try to water only in the early morning or evening to reduce evaporative water loss. 

Instead of short waterings everyday, try to aim for deeper soaks less frequently. For example, I’ll usually water once or twice a week on average weather weeks. I’ll set my timer to 20 minutes and let my hoses run, then turn them off for a half hour, then run them again. This lets the water really soak into the ground instead of just running off.

Plant drought tolerant natives

Not only will you be saving money, you’ll be attracting native pollinators into your yard and supporting native wildlife. Things like yarrow, salvia and penstemon do really well around here.

Tough Soil

Our native soil is heavily clay based. When I first moved into my house, the ground had big cracks running throughout the backyard because of how dry and hard it had become. Later on as I was placing bricks around my raised beds and moving around some dirt, I just about gave into my childish urge to make pottery out of the clay I was digging up. 

It’s difficult to grow things in almost straight clay as you can imagine. One of the most difficult parts about it is that it hangs into water almost too well. I’m pretty sure that’s why I cannot for the life of me keep a lavender plant alive here – I water it because it looks dry on top and then the roots end up rotting in the water it is hanging onto down below. 

Amending your soil to make it more habitable will help you out tremendously if you want to garden here. We have implemented a style of gardening called Back to Eden gardening, which is based on the premise of building and covering your living soil. 

You can read all about that method in this article here.

It may be difficult, but it is not impossible. We have learned how to adapt to our challenges and limitations in the garden and because of them, I believe we are much better gardeners. We have learned how to read the clouds for hail, how to time our watering schedule to let Mother Nature handle most of it, and how to work with wildlife to ensure we both have enough to eat. What a crazy, hard and wonderful adventure this has been!

…but boy does it make me look forward to gardening in Washington again.

Tell me about your garden struggles! What limitations are you working around in your climate?

Happy growing,

Becca

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