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Vegetable Variety Pages: | Beans - Carrot | Cauliflower - Corn |Cucumber - Peas Peppers - Squash | Tomato - Watermelon

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This page: 2011 Planting Guide, When to Start Seed, When to Set Out

Wyogrow...where the tough get growing, by Fred Jacquot

I have been an active gardener in the Casper area now for over 30 years. Back when I first started no one could tell a beginner what kind of carrots or tomatoes grew best here. Because I have been taking notes all these years, you can find out what plants do best in Wyoming on the 'vegetable varieties' pages, whose links are above.

Along with my partners Mark McAtee and Paul Combe I have done a lot of experimenting and research. You can find the results of this activity on these many pages. Please click on the links and start viewing our work. I think you will find that there is a huge amount of information available here for you. Enjoy!

May 9, 2012

I have planted thus far: Onions, Leeks, Lettuce, Carrots, Peas.

April 17, 2012

After yesterday's snow, the count of snow-on-the-daffodils is now: 3.

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FACTORS IN GARDENING SUCCESS #2

SOIL

It is possible to till ground that has never grown a garden, to seed it, and to have success. But, I guarantee that you will not have success the following years without modifying your soils. Soils in Central Wyoming tend to be very heavy clay or sand. Either way, you will have to be mixing organic materials into your soil to help retain water, to provide nutrients, and to keep the clay from choking the roots. Here is a link to help you:

Soils

April 11, 2012

The big box stores sell plants in pots that supposedly are biodegradable. That is, the implication is that if you put the pots in the ground, they will disintegrate during the growing season. That has not been my experience. What happens in a wetter climate does not necessarily happen here. Remove the plant from the pot before you stick it in the ground. You will have a lot better luck.

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FACTORS IN GARDENING SUCCESS #1

SELECTION

The single biggest factor in the success of your garden will be choosing the right variety. A good selection will overcome many of the natural deficiencies of our climate and soils here in Wyoming. I have links to pages on this site that will help guide you.

Beans - Carrot

Cauliflower - Corn

Cucumber - Peas

Peppers - Squash

Tomato - Watermelon

A general rule for success is to look for the 'days to maturity' number on the seed packet or in the catalog. Choose varieties that are very short seasoned. One caution is that the days to maturity numbers are different for plants that are set out (like tomatoes or peppers) as compared to seeds that are directly sown into the soil (like carrots or beans). For plants that are set out, the days to maturity numbers begin at set out. In the case of Tomatoes look for days to maturity numbers in the 60s or 70s. In a warm season, you may get away with a Tomato whose days to maturity are 80. But, 80 is the extreme upper limit. Year after year, you will have better luck with Tomatoes whose days to maturity are 78 or less.

Note: After the most recent snow, the Snow-on-the-Daffodil count is now 2.

March 31, 2012

Just a quick note. Rhonda Crow sends word that Azomite is being sold here in Casper, at Tom Heald's business on Ash Street between Midwest and Yellowstone. Azomite provides rare minerals for plants.

The last average day of frost for Casper is May 25. I will be getting my cool plants (onions, peas, etc.) in the ground about May 1. Yeah, I know, the weather is great right now. But we still have frosts coming.

March 23, 2012

My partner, Mark McAtee, reminds me that it snow recently and that the Daffodils were up. Daffodil count: 1. When I walk in the park along Garden Creek at this time of year, I am reminded that there are at least 7 different kinds of Willow along its banks. Some are a bright light green already. Some are neon yellow. Some are orange. Some are a russet. Some show no color at all yet. I also note that may of the birds that leave Casper for the Winter are back including: Robins, Grackles, Starlings, and Cowbirds.

February 21, 2012

First, I have a note from a reader in Indiana.

"Hi Fred:

The wyogrow.com website is such a blessing! Thank you for the site and the encouragement it has been to me. My husband is considering a job opportunity in Casper. Among all the considerations we have to take in to account, as to whether this would be a good move for us, is the gardening situation there. By the beautiful pictures posted on the website I see that YES!, indeed!, that gardening is alive and thriving in Wyoming!! Our fertile soil, abundant water, and growing season here in Indiana has spoiled us. We saw a friend's garden in Buffalo several years ago, and sad to say, it was very puny and has given us concerns about gardening in Wyoming.

If you have the time and would be willing to answer a few questions for me I would appreciate it so very, very much!

1). Can you give me an over-all assessment of gardening, and more specifically, organic gardening in Casper? Are there gardening clubs or groups in Casper?

2). The photos I saw on your website showed mostly container or raised beds gardening. Is that the norm for the area?

3). Other than fellow gardeners, are there other good resource people/establishments that can offer help and suggestions? Here we have Purdue University extension service that has many materials we can use. We also belong to the Indiana Organic Gardeners Association that has quarterly workshops and meetings, and a few special info meetings throughout the year.

4). I am sure I will learn more and more as I spend time on your website. If it is easier for you to suggest reading material instead of taking time to respond to my inquiries I understand completely and thank you for your time and trouble.

Admirer from Indiana"

Here is my reply:

1. Yes, there are the master gardening groups in virtually every city in the State of Wyoming. Other groups also exist. My gardening partners and I do not like to use chemicals to kill bugs or blight in the plots. In the last 7 or 8 years we have used very little indeed. But I would not hesitate to use chemicals if I thought it was the best solution. You have more bugs in Indiana than we have here because of the moisture in your climate. But these desert bugs here are something you have not encountered. They are tough and voracious. But do not worry, you most likely will be successful with organic gardening here. My own opinion is that we, in Casper, and in much of the rest of the state, are gardening at the climatic margin. If our land was much higher in elevation, or cooler in temperature, good big gardens would not be possible. Our Last Average Day of Frost here is May 25, and I calculate that our growing season is about 114 days, max. So, the logical implications for you are: that you should look to shorter season varieties to be successful, you should definitely plant the 'cool weather' crops like carrots, brassicas, beets. But, as you can figure out, from this site, Warmer Weather plants can also be grown here. Bill Simpson gets good musk melon and watermelon each year. But he direct sows the seed and then covers his growing areas with sheets of glass to warm the soil until the plants are sprouted and the temperatures are warm enough to keep the soils as warm as melons demand. Instead of glass, I use clear plastic tents over my beds for melons. Last year I forgot the tents and had a lousy year with the watermelon. Fortunately, I have a friend in Bill Simpson, who gave me some of his.

Once our weather does heat up we enjoy some serious heat. But the days cool off toward evening. We will have hot nights only for a week to ten days. Spinach, for example, grows well until the heat comes on...then it is all over. That is why my partners and I grow Swiss Chard instead. Temperatures can be mild or even warm in May. Most old-hand gardeners wait until Memorial Day to set plants like Tomatoes and Peppers out. Then, in early June we get a cool period that will drive you crazy. It can be hard for Peppers to survive this spell. Once through it, the garden is off to the races. We will always get another cool period right around September 3 - perhaps even a light frost. Then it warms again and we get the killer frosts starting about September 22. Direct-sown plants can go in a bit earlier than Tomato or Pepper. We try to plant cool weather plants like onion, lettuce, carrot, and peas on May 1.

Soils are an issue here. They typically are hardpan clay or blow sand. Either way, they are lacking in organic material, and so they need to be severely modified.

Climate/Conditions: The biggest challenge our climate bestows, once the plants are in the garden, is the wind. Wind in the Spring and Early Summer will suck the life right out of your plants. If not protected, your Tomatoes and Peppers will die. That is why we surround ours with the tubes (other gardeners use fences or other devises...but every successful gardener uses SOMETHING. By the time a plant can grow up out of the tube it is tough enough to handle the wind. We use small (3 inch) tubes around our Beans and Cucumbers. Both of these plants really do not take off growing until they can shade their own ground. The small tubes provide that shade early on. Also, the tubes really discourage the beetles that love to eat freshly sprouted cucs and beans. Do use the One Third Rule found on my Ideas Page. One other idea I have for you is that even if you find some short season Tomatoes you like, do consider planting half Indeterminate and half Determinate plants. In a cool season the Determinate Tomatoes will outperform the Indeterminates. In a hot season, it will be the other way around. Please find varieties of Tomatoes on this link.

And here is a link to one of my pages. The bottom of the page has photos of our plots and Barry Frank's plots. These will give you a better idea of what can and can not be done in a garden in Casper.

Your garden here will not be as productive as your garden in Indiana. We do not have the soil, or the total hours of heat (particularly at night). A well worked garden here will be 1/2 to 2/3 as productive as one in Indiana. Sorry.

2. I think that row gardens are the norm for the Casper area. I am trying to promote the use of Raised Beds. What the beds do is raise the roots of the plants, exposing them to more total heat. Also, If one has limited space, the raised beds allow for more intensive planting. Do gardeners have good success here without raised beds? Yes they do.

3. Purdue huh? One of my brothers got a degree from there...from Paris on the Wabash (Casper is the Paris of the Plains). Resources for gardening will be scanty compared with Indiana. We do have the Master Gardeners and the County Extension Agent (University of Wyoming). But, one of the reasons I started this site was that information was hard to get when I first started. After 35 years of failures (some every year) I can offer some clues to the readers of these pages.

4. I really don't have any suggested reading. Few books are available about the challenges of high altitude gardening. Do study the planting guide at the bottom of this page.

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The big crisis I have been dealing with, of late, is the fact that I can not get Applause Tomato seeds this year. There must have been a crop failure. Love those Applauses. They flat out perform. They will be replaced by Bush Champion. I have never grown Bush Champion. So this is a gamble that I have no choice but to take. Last year we had 14 Applause plants and lost 2 to blight. The other big bed of Determinate Tomatoes (Corona) was a total bust. No matter what I did, Blossom End Rot got to virtually all of those Tomatoes. I hope Bush Champion can resist the blight and the Blossom End Rot. I will, of course, move all the Tomatoes this year to beds that did not grow Tomatoes last year (2011). When attacked by blight, one must rotate.

January 27, 2012

Barry Franck sends this note.

"Fred,

Here are some pictures of lettuce I did in new containers its a spin off Deep Water Culture Hydroponics, but instead of clay pebbles I used potting mix. The containers are 6'' deep and 21'' x 16'' with 6 pots and holds 4 gallons of water. I have only add water about once per week so far but think that will increase once the plants get bigger. I planted the seeds on 12/7/11. They took 10 days to come up. The pictures are 39 days after planting the seeds.

Barry"

January 11, 2012

Greetings for the New Year and the New Season. I have three goals to accomplish for this site before the Cottonwood balls fly in Summer: 1) Remake the Peppers - Squash page to reflect all the thought I have been putting into these vegetables. 2) Rebuild the flowers page on this site. 3) Build a new page designed to help first-time gardeners get started. I have accomplished the first of my goals, and am working on the next two. I will be posting more here soon.

2012 Planting Guide

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