Gardening With Altitude

Green Tomatoes

We've had quite a learning curve this year, gardening at a higher altitude. Moving up 1200 feet has a dramatic effect on the garden. We expected a shorter growing season. What we didn't expect is that we need more space...our beans and squash are not as productive at this altitude (3500') so that we need to plant twice or three times as many plants to harvest the amount of garden produce that we are used to. We are also moving to a four-season gardening plan. This is still extremely experimental, and I have already discovered that my cabbage is too loose, it won't store over the winter .My "heads" are open instead of forming a ball. I followed standard gardening protocol for cabbage...next year I will plant cabbage in August instead of late July.

This has been an unusual year for tomatoes all across the United States. The Eastern states have tomato blight, the western states have had cooler evening temperature and slow ripening tomatoes.
I've been grateful for the cool night temperatures as I've had better sleep this summer than in many years. As "off-grids" we eschew air conditioning; the temperature is what it is. However, my tomatoes are still mostly green.

I've read that green tomatoes can be harvested and layered in boxes with sheets of newspaper between them. Then, pull tomatoes out as the ripen, discarding any rotten tomatoes. I'm thinking that this will work better with some varieties than with others. I'm going to give it a try if my tomatoes haven't ripened by fall. In the meantime I'm mentally debating about purchasing canning tomatoes. I prefer my tomato sauce over anything store-bought.

I'm hoping that as I seed-save I will develop varieties of vegetables which are adapted to our altitude. Not that seed saving is easy; it means choosing one type of plant to plant, and keeping that variety far away from anything that it might cross breed with. I'm thinking that I might get that aspect down pat in another decade or so.

This is the "push" time for the fall planting season. The problem is space, as my tomatoes aren't finished yet. My beans are slowing down, though, so I do plan to yank them next week. I pulled out the summer broccoli yesterday and I'll probably use that space for garlic. Gardening at this altitude is definitely a new challenge.