High Desert Gardens 2015

This is our third gardening season at the high desert homestead.  It is a challenge to garden organically at high altitude in a location where the only thing that grows naturally are tumbleweeds, cacti, pinon pine and juniper trees.

Our first year we started out with the water trough gardens and a few raised beds.  The second year we added more raised beds, potato cages and planted some apple trees.

Between December 2014 and April 2015 we built the new passive solar greenhouse. While not 100% complete, we were able to get some things planted in there late in the season.  By next year it should be going full speed ahead with the addition of some hydroponics.

Below are photos taken in mid-July of all the gardens.  Things have grown a lot between then and now (mid-August).  We will take more photos right before we harvest.  Each photo below has a description when you click to see the full-size photo.  If you want to see a progression of the three years, go to the photo gallery and then to The Gardens.

There is one photo of the raspberry plants where we used the Hugelkultur method.  If you are interested in the specifics, this page will launch into a new browser window:  "The Very Best Way to Plant Raspberries"