Have you thought about growing your own food?  If you are interested in vegetable gardening in Grand County, the Grand Community Gardens are here to help you. Whether you are new to gardening or have a great deal of gardening experience the community garden beds will help you be successful.  The “community” aspect provides a chance to see your neighbors while discussing what’s growing and what’s not.

There are challenges and rewards to growing vegetables at Grand County’s high altitude. The growing season is short and night temperatures can be cold. The average growing season based on the last frost in the spring, June 25, and first frost in the fall is 64 days in the Fraser Valley and up to 84 days as you move west to Kremmling.

With snow still on the ground, it’s hard to imagine that the summer growing season is just a few weeks away.  Here in Grand County vegetables considered “cool season crops” grow best. These include peas, lettuce, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, arugula, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. Root crops like carrots, beets, potatoes, radishes and many others will grow as well. It is time to buy your seeds either from local stores or by ordering online – vegetable seeds sell out fast.

In addition to knowing how cold tolerant the vegetable is, another thing to consider is how much time a plant needs to be able to grow from seedling to harvest, called days to maturity. This information is usually found listed in seed catalogs or on most seed packages. With our short growing season, pick varieties that have the fewest number of days to harvest.

Lettuce, for example, can be harvested as baby greens as quickly as 28 days or up to 60 days for a full-sized head of romaine. One way to grow cold tolerant vegetables that take a long time from seed to harvest is by planting already started plants. Some gardeners start their own transplants in their homes, others buy them at a garden center or greenhouse.  Examples of vegetables that we can grow from transplants include broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

The three basic requirements for growing vegetables are 6-8 hours of direct sunlight every day, an accessible water source and good soil. If you have the first two things, and have or are willing to create good soil, you are ready to decide where to create your garden.

Future articles will go into where to plant your garden, improving the soil, garden styles, maintaining the garden and harvesting. In addition, Colorado State University Extension and Grand Community Gardens are partnering on a high-altitude gardening class on Saturday, June 1 at the Granby library.

The Grand Community Gardens have raised garden beds that are fenced and irrigated. The garden beds are open to interested gardeners for a rental fee. There are garden sites in Kremmling at the fairgrounds, in Hot Sulphur Springs at the town park, and in Granby at Morales Park. 

For more information and for garden bed applications go to Grand.Extension.Colostate.edu/Community-Gardens. There is also a community garden in Fraser that is a collaboration with the Fraser Valley Metropolitan Recreation District. For more information on that garden contact the site coordinator at FraserValleyCommunityGardens@FraserValleyRec.org.