All the Dirt on Gardening

The elevation of your growing zone impacts not only the length of your growing season but the amount of rainfall and oxygen your garden has to work with. A recent trip to an Arkansas garden proved the point. We are the same horticultural zone but they are 1300 ft elevation and we are 300 feet. They are in the hills and we are in the foothills. Their season begins later, their soil is different and their rainfall is greater. Colorado (and other) gardeners can be in one of a few cold hardiness zones and also have unique microclimates from each other due to creeks, mountains, soil type, etc. One thing all arid area gardeners have in common is lack of or very little rainfall. The publisher and editor of Colorado Gardener magazine , Jane Shellenberger, has a new book out to help Colorado gardeners succeed. Shellenberger points out that "permaculture, working with nature and using its patterns as models to design functional ecosystems, offers a solution for turning this situatio...