Leslie Moody wrote:We’re not quite as high (6200’) but same problems, less moisture, lots of critters that chew through hoses, cages, eat anything any shade of green. We’ve had luck in the unprotected outdoors with asparagus, sunchokes, potatoes, mulberry, amaranth, squashes (sometimes) and corn. Mounds or slightly raised beds of manure, decomposed straw, chicken compost. Drip irrigation during the hottest weeks.
Under cover or protected in some way we grow lots of greens this time of year. Too hot and bright by late May for anything tender. Consider spring under cover and fall as your growing seasons, unless you can get in on a cold frame or other structure.
My asparagus is probably 10 years old and nothing bothers it. It's growing in an old water trough too leaky to hold water. I like those water troughs as planters! It helps focus watering, and it keeps at least some critters out. I've got sunchokes that are probably as old as the asparagus, also in a water trough -- I've never harvested any though. I suppose I should find out when to do that!
I have hops that, in spite of adverse growing conditions, persists in sprouting back each spring, though by mid-summer the heat and dry air seem to be too much for it . I'm growing it for shade purposes rather than for making beer (unfortunately it only gets a few feet high before the heat hits it), though I recently read that hops tea is a thing, so maybe this year I'll give that a try. I'm going to try to post a photo of the hops I just now took, though I don't seem to be very successful in sharing photos here. Anyway, considering that yesterday it was under snow, I'm impressed it's still green!
Anything else I want to grow, even in water troughs, gets eaten by rodents, bugs, or mammals. A porcupine got at my oldest apple tree, which is still struggling but it's not dead yet. I've got wire mesh around apple saplings I've planted in the past couple of years, with bird netting on top to keep the elk from coming in from that direction. I've got a cage around the largest and oldest hollyhock, but it's never flowered because somehow ground squirrels manage to get through the cage no matter what and eat it down to the crown several times a season. I throw more hollyhock seeds out every year and before they can get established they get eaten by something.
I try tomatoes every year, but they don't much like being watered with well water. It isn't until the July rains that they really get going, but that means that by the first frost I usually only get green tomatoes.
One year I accidentally grew a bush of alfalfa. It seeded itself from, I guess, my horses' hay. It came back several years before an elk got it. The elk eat just about everything, darn it! I've got cages everywhere!
Last year blister beetles ate everything that produced deciduous leaves except for the top of my apple trees and the Russian sage. My goji berry bushes were eaten to the wood. They came back, after, though, so maybe this year there won't be blister beetles. Hope springs eternal!
I can't really condemn all the critters that want to eat what I plant. They're hungry and thirsty. I do provide water (away from my garden!) and this year I'm considering planting clover to act as a bribe -- eat this, not my garden. Of course, that'll have to be fenced to keep my horses from eating it....
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