It has been 3 eventful summers since I last posted about my garden. The saying really is true – time flies when you’re having fun!

This year’s garden is a whole lot smaller and in a whole new locale – Colorado!

Several years of budget cuts, furloughs and missing pay raises due to the fiscal crisis in the state of IL, and the potential impending build of a large hog facility (20,000 head of hogs) very near our home started the ball rolling on a change of locale for the cookgardensew family.

After saying goodbye to the chickens, the gardens, the berries, and the land and home we worked so hard to clean up for the past four years we cast the proverbial job net out. Not sure of where it would take us, we spent the summer of 2017 scouting out potential future locales.  By August the dust had settled and the pin had been placed on the map. We were headed for Boulder, Colorado.

Anyone aware of the housing market in rural IL compared to the market on the Front Range of Colorado will realize the task we had ahead of us. After many months of searching, we found our (hopefully forever) home just north of Boulder in Longmont, Colorado.

For you gardeners out there, Longmont is in hardiness zone 5a which is very similar to our zone 5 garden in Illinois. The only stand out difference is the arid Colorado air, which is wonderful for everyday outdoor life and a bit less wonderful for gardening.

In Illinois we rarely, if ever, watered the garden. We had rain every week for the majority of the summer and the air was quite humid. While I don’t miss the humidity at all, I realized quickly that the garden here wasn’t going to make it a week without me watering. Now that I have that down, all is well.

When we moved in at the end of April, the garden looked like this.

Here it is after I planted all my Mother’s Day and birthday gifts. The best gifts grow, did you know that? 🙂

And here it is today.

All of the plants were purchased at The Flower Bin, a local garden store, because there was nowhere to start seeds indoors this year in our small rental. They all transplanted wonderfully. I would highly recommend The Flower Bin – they had everything necessary to get back going in my new garden and the prices were reasonable. They were also friendly and helpful, which was the icing on the cake.

As the summer heat started to spur on the plant growth in the yard, I realized happily that the previous owner of our house had planted a few other perennials around that I missed when we looked at the house.

Our berry plants at the old house were gearing up for their first really productive year when we moved, so I was super excited when I realized there are raspberry bushes along the back of our new house.

There are also some very hardy oregano, chives, lavender, and sage plants. Anyone in Longmont need some sage or oregano?

And this one took me a while, but thanks to some Google-fu I was able to determine that this leggy vine is hops. I moved around some fencing to give it something to climb and am watching it grow, since hops is new to me.

We also have beautiful roses and flowers in the front, something I never added to our other houses but am thrilled to have here!

One of the things I love about our new home city is how many beautiful and productive gardens are visible around town complementing all the small farms that we have locally. It is a powerful thing to see so many others with interests similar to my own.

I also love that Longmont has no issue with chickens and bees in town (so long as your neighborhood doesn’t prohibit them). Though it will be awhile before we get back to having chickens or bees, I love that the town embraces the possibility.

I miss having bees the most, even though the one hive we had in Illinois – started from a swarm that settled in our backyard –  wasn’t strong and didn’t make it through the winter. I learned so much watching the colony grow, and I hope that one day I can re-introduce bees onto our “urban homestead.” For now I will settle for watching the visiting honeybees on my plants – thankfully there are plenty around.

I think the biggest takeaway from our cross-country move is that patience and persistence pay off. Sometimes you have to take a chance and see where it takes you.

There is beauty in so many places in the world, both in the people and the culture and I am excited to continue to explore the corner of it that we now call home!