Grow Your Own!
Creating a garden at home is easy and delicious
By Eden Vardy

Live off the land this summer! By dedicating just a corner of your front lawn—or a section of your windowsill—to a home garden, you can eat the most local of foods in only a few weeks.  Growing your own food is not only healthy and delicious; it can also be an aesthetic element of your yard, and it’s tons of fun! In this, the first in my series of gardening columns for edibleASPEN, I will provide seasonal recipes for ecological gardening in the mountains.  In this issue, I’ll give you background on what ecological gardening is and provide instructions for building a garden bed. So, dig in!

Ecological gardening is an environmentally regenerative practice of growing food through observation and mimicry of the natural world. Use of sunny areas with natural wind protection, local nutrients and natural heat storage are thematic. The ecological gardener always schemes to decrease overall workload and maintenance by considering existent forces that can do the work. Attracting birds for manure and pest control, using rainwater catchment systems, planting along existing walking pathways and companion planting are some examples.

Here is a quick guide to building a “sheet mulch” (layered raised bed) ecological garden system. Use this only as a reference: consider your own situation, resources and nutrients and local natural forces before creating your own.

1.   Lay out cardboard, newspaper or any biodegradable “dry” material you have in excess to suppress weeds.

2.   Frame your bed using heavy (preferably dark) rocks that are abundant in your area, to store heat in the garden. This garden uses river rock. Use of circles and curves can greatly increase garden space.

3.   Import local nutrients to build soil: Compost, manure, straw, leaves and kitchen scraps work well.

4.   Water.

5.   Add a layer of topsoil or compost as a buffer to the “decomposing” lower layers. Let the garden “settle” for at least 10 days before planting.

6.   Plant and mulch (cover)! At our altitudes, hardy greens (like kale and chard), carrots, squash, lettuce and spinach, arugula, beets, nasturtiums (spicy flower), turnips, radishes, garlic, broccoli, asparagus and peas do well. More important than “what grows well” is “what you will eat”:

Select seeds you actually like so you’re excited to grow them! Sustainable Settings (6107 Highway 133, Carbondale, 963-6107) and Seeds Trust (www.seedstrust.com) out of Arizona specialize in high-altitude seed.  If you’re looking for additional support in designing your edible landscape, contact Aspen T.R.E.E at (970) 379-2323, a local eco-education organization that designs and builds edible gardens as well as teaches gardening and sustainable living workshops to kids and adults. Workshops include an ecological gardening series for adults and a summer day camp (Camp ReGeneration) for kids.  Check out www.re-generation.us for more information or register at www.aspennature.org.

Stay tuned to this gardening column in the fall issue for instructions on “putting your garden to bed” and methods for late season’s harvest! In the meantime, get out there and GROW YOUR OWN!