We’re having a community seed swap in Estes Park! Saving and sharing seed is a vital way to preserve and grow the biodiversity of our gardens and food. In a difficult climate like Estes Park, gardeners can greatly benefit from using locally adapted seeds. The Estes Park Community Seed Swap is a chance for local gardeners to meet, exchange seeds from plants that have been successful in local or similar high-altitude gardens, and learn from one another.

Attendees should come with seeds, root cuttings, or live plants packaged to share. Vegetables, flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees are all welcome. There is no cost to attend.

The event will be held at the Estes Valley Library, on Saturday March 3rd from 12pm-4pm. If you interested in attending, please sign up at http://www.evlcalendar.org/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=7600. If you are interested in sponsoring or helping out with the event, please send me an email (philip dot magistro at gmail dot com) and we can talk about details!

We had the good fortune this last week to take part as volunteers in Scott Rashid‘s Northern Saw-whet Owl (NSWO) banding project. There isn’t much known about these little owls, and Scott is the only bander here in Colorado. Exciting to be a part of that….and the owls are simply the most adorable creatures in the world.

Scott is looking for volunteers for the banding project – check out this article if you are interested!

I knew it was coming. We are already a week past our average last frost. Summer simply doesn’t last forever at 7,500′, but the plump acorn squash, bright sunflowers and ripening tomatos kept me over-optimistic. A light frost came through last night, like a betrayal from the summer sun, wilting the basil and squash leaves. Fall is here…

Lots going on in the garden lately! After six years of killing plants, we finally have a decent garden at 7,500′ here in Estes Park. Everything is growing like crazy; we’re even getting vine ripened red tomatoes right out of the garden. No greenhouse, hydroponics, et cetera, just plants in dirt. Well, soil. Our success wasn’t due to any one factor, but rather a few changes. First, we planted everything in raised beds full of pure composted horse manure. Second, we watered a lot during dry periods (by hand). Finally, we tried to choose plant varieties suited to our environment. The tomatoes, for example, are “Silvery Fir Tree” plants that I grew from seed. (Contrary to other reviews, we’ve found that the silvery fir tree tomatoes taste great! Much better than the store bought tomatoes we tried them against last week.) We bought our seed from Seed Savers Exchange. Quick recap: snow peas, spinach, lettuce, kale, beans, sunflowers, tomatoes, red onions and wheat have all done great. Acorn squash, blue potatoes, and carrots are looking good but too early to tell for sure. Quinoa and chard have been a bit too thirsty for our hand watering. Radishes didn’t do anything for us.

The chickens are doing well, though it can be tough to coax a pose for the camera. Getting between 6 and 12 eggs per day from our fifteen hens. The “Red Broiler” hens are, evidently, fine layers as well. We’ve abandoned composting in favor of tossing every scrap of green waste (from weeding, kitchen, et cetera) to the birds, and they appreciate it. I spread the now six year old and not quite ready compost as mulch on some of the shrub beds around the house. The birds do a much much better job of turning scraps and weeds into protein and fertilizer….and they love it, as well. No onion peels, raw potatoes, citrus, or banana peels for those ladies, though!

The big new addition to the garden is a hive of bees, relocated earlier this week from Denver. It is a top-bar hive, made by the folks at www.backyardhive.com, and is full of thriving honeybees and their winter stash of honey. We’ll harvest their surplus in the spring. They wasted no time in locating all the flowering plants in the neighborhood, and bring back nectar and pollen to the hive. If the six foot wire and wood fence doesn’t keep the bears away this fall, we’re hoping that .6 joules of electric fence will. I touched it, and it doesn’t seem that bad…

As the next step in providing our own locally produced food, we’ve decided to pursue beekeeping. To that end, we are building a top bar beehive. Top bar hives are an alternative to the Langstroth hive that may be better for the bees. For one, in a top-bar hive the bees build their own comb each season. Fresh wax is less likely to concentrate pesticides and toxins from year after year of honey. Also, by specifying their own comb cell size, they may be better able to fight parasites in the hive.

On the practical side, anybody with a few tools can build a top bar hive from reasonably inexpensive lumber. We used scrap pallets and some 2×4 laying around the garage. We did borrow a table saw to cut the top bars. We used Philip Chandler’s free instructions on how to build a top-bar hive, but many plans are available.

Next step – find us some bees! If you happen on a swarm in Estes Park, drop us a line and we’ll give them a happy home.

Our good friends Kate and Brian came out to visit last week. We had planned on doing some climbing, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. So we went out shooting instead! Brian is a law enforcement ranger with the National Park Service, and Kate doesn’t really like guns…despite her appearance below. (Of the items she’s carrying, the .22 belongs to us, the coke and baby belong to Brian. Seems to have forgotten the cigs.)

Yesterday, Mike Newlands, Jess Miltenberger, Adam Hufford and I went up to Jewel Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park for a casual day of ice climbing. We had stunningly perfect weather for the hike in. I lead the first pitch in solid style, feeling quite comfortable in my new Vasque single boots. Pysched on the Boa lacing.

We each took a turn on toprope. Jess learned quickly how to get into a groove and topped out on her first attempt…but dealt with a bout of “screaming barfies” while rewarming her hands at the base. Adam led two pitches later in the day, and I took photos from the top. Topped it off with beer and chili rellenos at Ed’s in downtown Estes. All in all a great day.