I am new to gardening but my girlfriend does it here in Michigan and dreams of having a center for healing all vegan. We are considering colorado and have possibly even narrowed it down to buena vista colorado.

My question before investing there is whether or not that land is fertile to grow gardens on a large scale like 1-2 acres. From your site i got the planting schedule. I have been on vacation in buena vista colorado twice and am surprised you could grow much there or at least the range of things listed.

Is there someone I could talk to to find out more about this area and whether it is realistic to grow a 1-2 acres garden that would rely mostly on natural rain water as opposed to a small house garden that when there is less rain I can afford to pay to use a garden hose?

ken
248-890-8883
[email protected]

First of all, Ken, it's not a really good idea to post your personal contact information on a public site. No one here would misuse it, but this site is open to all. Members can contact you privately through our Tree-Mail system.

Secondly, you can scroll down to the bottom of any page and click on the "Memberlist" (it's in teeny white print just above the Facebook logo). You can search for members who live in or near that area. We have a lot of members in Colorado.

According to the USDA zone map, that area is similar in climate to my growing area. I grow a lot of things, mostly from seed, but I do use a greenhouse, as our growing season is rather short. You might need to do likewise.

Hopefully, someone more familiar with that particular area will come along.

Try a university in COlorado for an extension service or publications aimed at home gardeners or small farmers.
Here:
http://extension.colostate.edu...
I clicked the agriculture tab but some info under yard and garden may be useful too

Welcome to ATP Ken. In addition to the info above, this lists Chamber of Commerce links and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Couple of things to consider, as far as growing a large garden at an elevation of 7900ft. Your season really is going to be very short. There will be a lot of vegetables and fruit that simply won't reach bearing size because the warm weather just doesn't last long enough. Nights get cold in August up there . .. (we lived in Utah for 21 years, similar altitudes)

Water will be another limitation - there's a fatal flaw in the idea that you can grow vegetables and fruit using only rain water. Even with large cisterns or other rain water collection vessels, you'll use up an amazing amount of water once the weather warms up, and it gets dry - i.e. sunny weather that you need to make your crops grow - you will quickly run out of water and there won't be any rain to replenish your cisterns. Turning on the tap to keep your food growing will become very costly in a large garden, and heartbreaking if you can't manage to irrigate everything.

There is a river near the town, but you'd have to contact the local Extension service to find out if a small commercial garden would be allowed to tap into water from the river. Otherwise you might be able to drill a well, or better yet, buy a property with a well so that you can keep watering with untreated water.

You'd also have to find out about the fertility of the soil in the area from the Extension service.

The list of publications here
http://extension.colostate.edu...
begins to give an idea of what can be grown- in the state as a whole. That location may not allow all these, or you may need to make extra effort.

Bear in mind, what dyzzypyxxy says, this is not going to be an easy place for a new gardener. And though there are publications about fruit trees, those can be pretty complicated to manage.

Not sure if you're trying to supply a lot of your own needs, or just be able to grow for fun.

If your "all vegan, healing center" will be a commercial enterprise I think I'd be looking to buy property a lot further south, so that you could dependably supply your need for home-grown produce on a larger scale.

The short growing season in Colorado might make your healing center a summer into fall experience only, I fear. Carrying it through the other seasons would necessitate buying organic produce.

Southern California, the Gulf Coast and Florida are about your only options if you want to grow fresh produce all year 'round and live in the USA.