New Year, New Garden

Raised beds at the boundary of the chapel and the golf course.

There is a chapel, Snowmass Chapel, adjacent to the grounds where our cabin is located. The property also functions as a park funneling walkers, bicyclists, and dog-walkers and baby strollers through it along two paved paths. I had been looking at this path-side landscape, planted roughly 20 years ago, for a month or so. Clearly suffering from inattention, it had fallen into weediness, and had a good dose of invasive species. 

When Dames Rocket showed its dusky pink blooms, I emailed the chapel's operation manager to ask if I could pull them. She responded positively, and thus began my weekly pull of different species, from Spotted Knapweed, Centaurea stoebe to Western Salsify, Tragopogon dubius. Thistles of various species get cut down at the base, but the proliferation of Cornflower, Centaurea cyanus, was left alone. 

The cornflower, sometimes called Bachelor's Buttons (will the real bachelor button please stand up), is quite pretty in early to mid-June, growing lush and blooming prolifically off May snow-melt. And then, as we might say, it craps out, in July, after this region's driest month of June. Centaurea cyanus is at home in Europe, where it said to be in decline in many regions. However, in the U.S., it is considered a noxious weed in some states as it spreads from yards and sunny fields to open woodlands quite easily. I've seen that on our grounds, as well as the chapel grounds and other properties. Although it should be removed, it is a daunting task given deep roots and high numbers. That project will require more than just myself. 

At some point I had mentioned to Julie, the chapel's operations manager, that I was looking for space to grow some garlic (whenever possible, I avoid the grocery stuff). As it turns out, one of their parishioners had donated funds to create a raised bed garden for their children's summer day camp. Boulders were brought in, then fill, to build out an area level enough to garden. And so, an opportunity was born. They purchased three pre-fab raised beds and brought in three pallets of bagged soil. I offered to build two raised beds of my own in trade for my past weeding of their semi-wild grounds. 

 

Redwood 2x6x8 lumber

 

You can only special order Western Red Cedar in this area, yet Redwood is available at the one retail store that carries such things (Lowes). Its price is equivalent to what we would pay for rough sawn cedar in Minnesota. After waiting on a heavy metals soil analysis (more on that in another post), I set to constructing two boxes 48 inches wide, 96 inches long, and 16 inches tall.

 

I prefer well-aligned, level beds. The chapel-assembled beds I'll attempt to level, later.

  

A pallet of bagged soil

Lumber is expensive in this area, as are most things. I spent about $450 dollars to build these two boxes, but that was offset by the chapel-provided soil. A pallet of 55 bags would likely be, with delivery, at least $250, and I needed about forty five bags per bed. There was just enough on site for me to fill my two beds and leave eighteen bags to top up their three beds —quite a bit of settling had occurred since they had filled them.

I'm not a fan of bagged soil, in part due to so much waste plastic. In Minnesota I could get deliveries of compost and chipped bark for my nursery. Although the stack of soil smelled like manure, the emptied bags showed a lot of wood chips. The material was quite fluffy and moldy. I do not think it will make a great soil for growing garlic and I will need to add lots of nitrogen to initiate further breakdown of the carbon-heavy wood. I believe this product is made on the Front Range of Colorado (where most of this state's population lives), and my supposition is that the "topsoil" includes manure/bedding (the nitrogen to balance the woody carbon) from the cattle feed lots that extend out into the high plains east of the Front Range.

I will receive my new garlic seed stock in September and plant these two beds. Hopefully there will be a return to moisture within the coming weeks. It is so dry here that the vegetation on the slopes, and even some trees, are already turning to autumn color.