Building Garden Boxes and Garden Solutions
Longmont, Colorado area landscapes {Monthly Series}
Having fresh vegetables and fruits growing in your garden is one of the best ways to eat healthy, know the environment where your food comes from, and is a great way to relax while tending the garden. It can be hard work at times, but hard work is rewarding both physically and mentally. Eating something that you grew carries weight on its own, too. It is a great educational tool for children of all ages for them to learn where their food comes from. Getting there can cost money that may seem like a waste. Let’s break it down.
There are many ways to grow fruits and vegetables on your property. Designing an edible landscape is probably the least expensive landscape design principle used to incorporate vegetables or fruits into your Longmont Colorado landscape. It involves using fruits and vegetables in a more ornamental way than traditional box or row gardening by placing fruiting shrubs and more leafy ornamental vegetables right into the existing landscape among the trees, shrubs and perennial beds. Water can be tricky, since one would probably just tap into an existing drip irrigation system to water the plants, but those vegetables, especially, may not be watered often enough. Fruiting shrubs, like Raspberries, Blackberries, Gooseberries, Cranberries, Chokeberries, Currant, or Blueberries may do just fine on drip irrigation, but traditional root crops or common Tomatoes and Peppers may need supplemental watering. That can be tricky and a pain.
The next option is tilling up a section of your property and incorporating manure, compost, or other soil amendments to the existing, usually, heavy clay soils we have along the Front Range of Colorado. This is also relatively inexpensive, but can take several years to have good, deep and rich soil for planting. Weeds can be a problem in this more open gardening technique, but weedbarriers could be used between rows of vegetables. This is usually most appropriate for what is called “row” planting, where plants are sown in distinct rows.
For watering, a separate irrigation zone should be installed, preferably, as drip irrigation, but top watering has some advantages, especially using low output, and low to the ground Maxijet irrigation stakes. This keeps the “top” watering below established plants, like taller Tomatoes, Peppers, Beans, Peas, etc., that do not always like to have their leaves wetted. Disadvantages are that heavy foliage may block water spray later in the season. Larger impact sprinklers for top watering on risers that are 3-4’ high eliminate this issue but can use significantly more water. Drip irrigation is difficult to use with newly planted seeds, as the drip is localized to one small spot, whereas top watering wets all the soil to allow rows of seeds to be watered to germinate. Drip irrigation is best if ONLY transplanted plants are used such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc. are planted as the drip emitter tube can be placed right at the base of the plant.
Another option is to use raised vegetable garden boxes. One advantage to boxes is that fresh quality soil can be installed immediately for healthy plants to thrive, and the garden is more contained, localized, and fitted to a well-defined space. Cost is the concern here. Glacier View builds garden boxes out of 6”x6” CAC treated landscape timbers rated safe by the EPA for vegetable gardening. Those timbers will last between 10-30 years depending on exposure to water and other environmental factors but will last significantly longer than untreated non cedar timber (5-7 years), but perhaps the same amount of time as rough cedar timbers (10-20 years). Cedar is significantly more expensive than treated timbers in 6”x6” material. All can be capped with a smooth Redwood 2”x8” timber for a more formal look. Irrigation issues are the same as described earlier.
Lastly, pre-cast galvanized steel “watering” troughs come in various shapes and sizes. Glacier View has found that these products will eventually rust (5-7 years), are not generally as attractive in the style of landscapes we install (traditional versus a more modern landscape), but the cost can be significantly less than using timber. Over time, they may also have structural issues due to soil pressure as they are usually not as sturdy as timber.
Any of these types of gardens can have hoop covers, cold frames, or netting installed over them depending on the types of fruits and vegetables grown and the timing. That, of course, is an additional cost. Once the structures are in place, it is just a matter of planting, watering, tending to weeds, and learning how each individual fruit and vegetable can thrive in our harsh Colorado climate. That becomes the lifelong learning process. Good mental health is a benefit of time well spent in a garden. Try some.
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