I said I’d stick to herbs for a bit, but then got a nice note from a lady in the Arizona mountains, which reminded me of an experience.

We moved to the Colorado Rockies at 9,300 feet a year and a half ago to be with our widowed daughter and two grandsons. Everyone in town said you couldn’t grow vegetables at that altitude, so I just nodded quietly, built a lttle greenhouse (do a search to see it) and began planting last spring, while writing a gardening column for the local paper. The joke around town was that everyone hoped summer would fall on a weekend that year.  The sun was fierce, the air dry, the winds dessicating, and the soil was just pulverized granite.  So I found a free source of composted horse manure, and did pretty well with that, drip irrigation,  floating row covers for sun protection, and straw bales for raised beds.

Word got around about my gardens, so the county extension agent asked to come see the place. “Sure,” says I. And  so here she comes with a camera and notebook, looking around at the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, peas, summer and winter squash, broccoli, leeks, greens and so on — including the bok choy you see above.

She started taking pictures, and asked “How did you do this?”

“Well, for one thing,” I told her, “somebody said I couldn’t.”

A 9,300 foot summer squash