It was such a pleasure to host my cousin Josh and his family for another summer of Ranch Camp. We spent a morning hunting for fossils tucked into the sandstone layers that tower above the creek, and uncovered various bivalve impressions in the rock. Later we cooled down with an old-fashioned sprinkler party on the lush green grass in the backyard. What a treat it is to share this place with others!
My new raised bed jungle-garden was thriving with rich compost and abundant rain. I tried my hand at square foot gardening this year, with one plant per square foot. My two beds accommodated 18 tomato plants, 12 pepper plants, 4 cucumbers, 3 winter squash, and beds of beets, lettuce, basil and cilantro. Easy watering, weeding, and harvesting was possible right outside our bedroom door. It was a dream!
The cool, wet month of June didn’t encourage my garden to grow very quickly. But by early August, the black cherry tomatoes and Abe Lincoln slicers were ripe, along with an epically large, fleshy sweet pepper! Little lemon cucumbers seemed to grow and ripen overnight as the temperatures rose. Wait until you see what September brought….
Ample rains meant that native grasses and wildflowers were thriving this summer (so was knapweed, but I didn’t take pictures of that). This field of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) sparkled in the morning sun, it’s deep maroon-colored stems leading to the perpetual question “why little BLUEstem?”
Coulee Creek Ranch 