Free State Wyoming Forum
Prospective Free State Wyoming (FSW) Members and Interested Parties => Prospective Free State Wyoming (FSW) Members and Interested Parties => Topic started by: SADDLETRAMP on October 31, 2009, 04:54:22 PM
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Hello, I am a newbie and was wondering if some of you LUCKY ones that are already in Wyoming could give me some info on the length of the growing season in your area?
Thanks in advance:
SADDLETRAMP
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The growing season is just about as long as you want it to be - provided you have two bathrooms!
(http://i632.photobucket.com/albums/uu50/windrush48/Resizeof10-29-09c.jpg)
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Hmmmm, there's a house they'll be watching the kilowatt hours on. :D
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I would say from June through September. It will probably snow in May and October.
If you feel lucky you can plant earlier and figure that if your first planting dies you can try again in June. This year, we had a modest garden that gave us some fresh veggies.
Lettuce: Iceberg and Romaine did well and gave us plenty of salad fixings until they went to seed. We replanted, but those never did anything.
Radishes: They grew fast and produced well. Pity I don't like radishes.
Snap peas: We got a nice bit of these, but next year we should plant a lot more. 16 plants is clearly way too few.
Peppers: Of the eight or so plants I started with, half died and the others refused to grow or produce.
Broccoli: Worthless. It takes too long to grow and produces very little.
Watermelon: It never grew more than a thin spindly vine. Worthless.
Carrots: Of the 18 (or 32?) seeds planted, maybe half germinated, and one actually grew.
Squash: Neither the yellow crookneck nor the butternut plants produced.
Zucchini: The single plant grew modestly and produced one or two nice sized ones every week.
Tomato: Our dozen or so plants produced nicely until the hail in late summer tore them up.
Corn: They were growing nicely until the hail killed them. It turned out that many of them were actually ripe though.
Potatoes: They grew fast and furious. I suspected that they were stealing from the other plants so I harvested them early. Next year I will put them well away from everything else.
We used the "Square Foot Gardening" system this year and I think it is probably the best way to get good results from a small garden. I will probably continue using that next year for most of my veggies, except for the potatoes, corn, and zucchini which will get a larger and separate area.
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Just counting the days, Bobcat, just counting the days!
Know what they are?
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you can't plant any tender stuff until the 2nd week of june. and you better have some cover for them after labor day. also the month of june was all rain and gloom this year, so nothing really started growing until july. that said, i still got 250 lbs of spuds, various flavors, 10 gallon of carrots, 5 gal turnips, 50 some winter squash, and lots of yellow and zuchinni. 39 pints of green beans, one cantelope, first i have ever had!!! 2 batches of celery to dehydrate and its regrowing again now(in the hot bed). lots of peas, spinach, chard, and onions and garlic. and more than that!! so it is possible to have plenty. THe grass hoppers were terrible this year so we turned the chickens into the garden. the rhubarb was fantastic, havn't dug any of the horseradish yet. harvested lots of various peppers. and the berry bushes are finally getting going. it takes a lot of work just like anywhere. ours are all intensive planted raised beds and last spring i added 6 pickup loads of compost to them. darn i'm getting old for this. but it just gets better every year. sewingdove
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Just counting the days, Bobcat, just counting the days!
Know what they are?
Nothing the DEA would really be interested in, but I can't identify it. Nice looking plants, but do tell us what they are!
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Thanks everyone. Judithevan, sounds like you have it figured out, could you tell me what county you are located in?
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Saddle tramp, If you go to the main menu under "home" above in the blue bar, and look under the "Lay of the land" topic you will see lots more info on gardening.
I spent 25 years gardening in Southwest Wyoming. It is a zone 3 so pretty tough going. I built a nice big greenhouse out of scrap and grew all sorts of stuff. Your best area for milder climates will be on the Eastern side of the Windrivers all the way out to the border.
Big Ugly, it wouldn't be tobacco would it?
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Read through this link http://www.statemaster.com/state/WY-wyoming for all the stats you may want to know. Punch this link as well- http://weather.msn.com/monthly_averages.aspx?wealocations=wc:USWY0030&q=Casper%2c+WY+forecast:averagesm . You can put in any city in Wyoming near you(or where you're headed ;)) and then just click the averages heading. That should give you a decent idea of both percipitation and temps which should help you figure the average growing season. Nothing like talking to locals, but a good start none the less.