Ants and Aphids Have Each Other's Back by Angelica Elliott

 

Photo: Pexels

Late last summer, something strange caught my attention while weeding around a Cosmo plant. I noticed a black blob on the plant's main stem. As I got closer to inspect, I realized it was a thick colony of black aphids (family Aphididae), and from my experience, where there are aphids, there will likely be ants.

Simple Propagation From Cuttings by Jeffrey Blake

Photo: dreamstime.com

Last season, a neighbor brought over a basket of herbs and vegetables including some very fresh Rosemary sprigs. Since I like to grow my own herbs, I immediately took a 4-5 inch section of a Rosemary sprig and prepared it to propagate in my garden. Now I have a healthy plant in my raised bed – that I use when cooking. And now this season, I have been looking for opportunities to create a few more Rosemary plants. I am sharing here the steps I took to propagate a cutting from my new plant. You can use these generic steps to propagate almost any plant that doesn't have a woody stem.

Preparing For Winter by Gregory Engel

Pexels:  Richard Fletcher

The end of summer is approaching and we're already experiencing cooler days and cooler nights. Flashes of yellow are appearing in the Linden tree outside my home office window and I'm busy harvesting the vegetables. Just as we plan next summer's garden during the winter, perhaps even begin seedlings inside while there is snow on the ground outside, we need to begin to prepare our garden spaces for winter as the harvest winds down and we move into fall.

Are you ready for next year's hail storms? by Terry Rintala

All photos by the author

If you have lived in Colorado for any length of time, you most likely have been in or around a hail storm.  

For gardeners in the state these can be very upsetting and traumatic events. Mainly because they can show up with little to no warning, sometimes weather services will show you that there is the threat of a hail storm during a weather incident (usually heavy rain). But in my experience, its usually 30 mins or less (if you happen to be watching the weather). I know several people that have lost most of their crops due to these storms.

Protecting New Plants from the Summer Sun by Sue Parilla

 

Photo: Sue Parilla

I had a few clusters of winter sown Aquilegia caerulea or Rocky Mountain columbines that I had not yet planted.  I knew they were crowded in their current container and wanted to get them in the ground. 

 If you must put a plant in the ground during the hottest days of the summer, there are some steps you can take to improve the chance that your new plant will survive this less than ideal time for transplanting. The hot Colorado sun will roast a newly planted flower or shrub. Giving it a little shade for its first couple weeks in the ground will give its roots a chance to settle in to its new digs. 

Composting with Worms: Vermicomposting by Sue Zirbes

 

Photo: Pexels: Sippakorn Yamkasikorn

When I was in Germany, I watched my family deposit their food waste in special buckets that were collected and used for community composting.  It’s nice to know that food waste is going back into food production.  One convenient method to do this with your own food waste is to have a worm bin in your garage.  It’s easy to do and it’s not even smelly.  Your worms will eat the food and process it into worm castings (poop) you can use to compost your garden.  The garage is a good home for your operation because the worms need to be shielded from the cold.

Black Swallowtails by Camille Paige

Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes. All photos by Camille Paige

The black swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, is a large native CO butterfly with distinctive adult and larval (caterpillar) forms. The adults are striking butterflies with yellow spots lining the wings and blue spots and a “tail” on on the hind wing. Females can be distinguished by their more pronounced blue scales and smaller yellow spots.

Cold Frames - Making the Best Choice by Gregory Engel

Photo credit:  Extension, University of Maine 
https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2752e/

If you've gardened in Colorado for more than a few years, you know it's a challenging climate. Conditions vary from the drought days of the early 2000's to the unusually wet and cool spring and summer we've had here in 2023. Add to this a wide variation in elevation zones. More often than not, we wish for an extended growing season. A popular approach to achieving this goal is to set up cold frames structures that extend the growing season by creating a micro-climate favorable to either starting plants earlier in the spring or continue growing them late into fall, perhaps even throughout the winter.

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant by Megan Snow

Photo by Author

Common names: Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, Bee spiderflower, Stinking-clover, Toothed spider-flower

Scientific Name: Cleome serrulata Pursh
 
I love my Rocky Mountain Bee Plant. The name caught my eye as I was looking for plants that attract pollinators to place next to my veggie beds in hopes of encouraging pollination.

A Bounty of Bees By Amy Longworth

Photo by author

One of the first things I planted was echinacea, which were being sold as a medicinal herb that spring. These perennial lovelies grow to about four feet tall and bloom prolifically from early summer until the first freeze in autumn.

The Myth of “Vine Ripe” by Amy Poinsett

When you should REALLY pick your tomatoes...

Many gardeners and tomato lovers believe that the very best tomatoes are those picked right off the vine at the moment of peak ripeness. Something like this…

Image by kie-ker from Pixabay

Unfortunately, we often find that something (I’m looking at you, squirrels!) gets to those perfect fruits before we do:

Galls on my Shrub Redleaf rose bush by Kelli Barker

Photo:  CMG Kelli Barker

Nature spared no creativity in designing its myriad of galls!  As I’ve dived deeper into my master gardener apprenticeship, I’m paying closer attention to the variety of shapes, sizes and colors of galls on various plants. Despite my increased awareness, I was still stumped in identifying what looked like large coronovirus molecules had attached themselves to my Redleaf rose bush (Rosa rubrifolia) in late May.  I planted this xeric shrub in northwest corner of my front yard, just 6 or so feet from the main road of my house in Wheat Ridge.