Mid July is an iterating time for the Gunnison Valley. We face a problem that most of us long for the whole year until it finely gets here. It’s too hot. Through most of the year the Gunnison Valley ranges from mild temperatures, to flat out cold. It is by no means easy but we adjust our lives to the cold, and pretty quickly we learn how to live with it. But this creates a unique problem for us, where we don’t know what to do for the three weeks of the year that it is hot. This difficulty is especially felt in the garden. To help me understand some things to do with gardens during the upcoming heat, I talked to Alex, one of the farmers on Mountain Roots Farm team. He talked to me all about carrots, reseeding, and some tip and trick for helping out our cold weather crops during these next few hot days.
Many of our cold weather crops such as brassicas, kale, turnips, and radishes thrive in Gunnison, but they can struggle a little bit through this heat. After a visit to the farm I saw that during this time at the farm, we have many of our cold weather crops covered with our frost cover. Along with helping to keep in the warmth during the cold nights, these covers can help to shade these cold weather crops from the intense heat of the July sun. With the intensity of the sun at this altitude, plenty of sunlight will still get through the frost cover for the plants, so there is no need to worry about them not getting enough sunlight.
Water, water, water, and then possibly water a bit more. With the weeks of heat ahead of us, now is the best time to make sure that you are getting the maximum amount of growth out of your garden. So make sure that they are getting enough water, and have the nutrients that they need. But this extra growth can also be our enemy right now when it comes to our greens. Right now our spinach and lettuce are wanting to bolt, so now is a good time to harvest and look too reseeding for a second round. Because after they bolt the leaves will take on a bitter taste. Bolting is when the greens are going to flower. You can tell when your greens are getting ready to bolt because they will start to send up a shoot with smaller leaves packed in tightly around it. if you see this happening make sure to cut it off.
Here is some examples of spinach and lettuce that is beginning to bolt.
Carrots
Speaking of cold weather crops, with my consultations, many of you have been asking me about carrots, so I decided to talk to Alex to see what we are doing at the farm. While there I helped to plant a row of carrots, and talked to the farm team to learn what we are doing to ensure that our carrots are growing. The first thing to know about carrots is that they take time. A long time. Carrots germination rate can be up to 14 days. In this time there is a lot that can happen to the little seeds, so here are some techniques that will help them get a jump on growing. Firstly it’s not too late to get another round of carrot starts going. Despite them needing 70 days to mature, carrots once established can withstand a light frosts, and this will actually help them to become sweeter.
Here is where our carrots that we planted 5/13, just to give you a reference.
When planting your carrots one technique that you can do to help evenly spread the small seeds is to mix the seeds and a small amount of dirt into a bowl, and then evenly distribute this dirt into the rows. It will help if you pre-water the soil, because inevitably once you water it, some of your seeds will get displaced and collect wherever the water pools. Once in the ground, the seeds need to remain damp for the entire germination period. If you have a home garden, there is no reason why you shouldn’t water your carrot seeds at least once a day. One technique that we have been using at the farm to help with keeping the seeds moist, and making sure that they don’t wash away during the afternoon thunderstorms is to cover them with burlap.
Alex told me that this helps to keep in the moisture, and does not have to be burlap specifically. Frost cover, old T-shirts, or a tarp would all work for this. Covering the seeds also has the advantage of keeping them cooler. Carrots are a cold weather crop, and these seeds will not germinate if it is too hot. So covering your seeds is a technique that will solve multiple problems with carrot seeds in one simple solution. Along with carrots there are still more things that you could be planting such as beets, radishes, and any greens
Mid summer is definitely and interesting time for this valley, and not something that we are very adapted to. But let’s not miss this heat for the opportunity that it is. So make sure you are getting your garden all of the water and nutrients that it needs right now, to really take off.