Edible Landscaping

As I mentioned in my most recent post, we just moved to the Denver area and have settled into a comparatively palatial house on a 12,000+ square foot lot. I love the house. It has 2,800 square feet of living space and 3,600 square feet total (unfinished basement). While the house is awesome, I'm even more excited about having so much land to develop for food production! We are really going to need it up here. I've been to just a handful of farmer's markets, but have been generally unimpressed by the quality of produce and the prices are crazy. That's the one advantage California has over Denver - the cost of great food. I'm really not a great gardener, but I've met with some success over the past few years. My mealy tomatoes would have blended right in at the markets I've been to - and those were the ones I was embarassed of! Even more depressing is the fact that a LOT of vendors aren't offering organic food.

So, next year I'm eager to get started on our garden. With any luck I'll be able to produce at least the lettuce and tomatoes we enjoy so much, along with greens like chard and kale. Eventually we would like to get a greenhouse so we can produce for more months of the year. In the meantime, however, I'm looking for great ideas on gardening at altitude, growing food in an area with short summer bursts and general tips on food production. Fortunately, I just stumbled across Rosalind Creasy's blog and book "Edible Landscaping." Her blog has a GREAT intro to growing food post that I wanted to tag for myself here (that way I can find it later!). I can't wait to get a hold of this book! Too bad our local library doesn't have it, but it gives me a great excuse to buy it!