Haven't posted in awhile. Random garden pics from Denver.

[countr21]

Been awhile since I posted. Just wanted to check in and show some pics of my cheap, little garden in Denver. My wife and I just do a very small garden in our back yard in some raised beds and large trash cans. Growing tomatoes and peppers can be challenging some years along the Front Range. We're up to the mercy of the weather basically. The most important thing is our average night time low temperatures. If it's consistently above 60F, tomatoes can prosper along the Front Range. If the lows are below sixty, it's not going to be a fruitful year. Last year was awesome, and we didn't get the first frost until well into October (avg mid-Sept). This year has been a nightmare. My suburb has seen about 15" of rain fall since May 1 (avg annual precip for the area is 14" - and that includes all snow totals), and it's been very cool. Just getting a chance to work the soil and get stuff planted has been a challenge. Not only until last week did I finally get my cukes and squash seeds in the ground and pulled up my Wall-O-Waters.

We love to garden for the enjoyment of it. If and when we have disappointing years, it seems there's always enough harvest to eat well out of it. We try to do "organic", but I try to spend as little on the garden in the first place (you can tell by my construction of it!!!). Gardening is supposed to save you money, right? I do buy soil amendments almost every year - mostly just cheap manure, peat moss, and sand. And we go thru about $20 worth of diatomaceous earth each year to control earwigs early in the season. It has been about five summers since, but I've used Seven and some chemical fertilizers in the past.