December 2025 E-Magazine
- Jane Shellenberger
- 12 hours ago
- 7 min read
Snow is falling at last!
My truck is still half full of dairy compost from Soil Rejuvenation just east of Longmont. Brian, the owner, is a lanky farmer with the gift of gab. His crop is soil and it excites him. For almost 10 years he has been researching and experimenting with materials and learning in depth about soil biology and what makes it thrive.
He’s got a whole bunch of tractors and big equipment to crush and mix minerals and organic matter for his compost, planting mix, and mulch “recipes”, and he’s very careful about their origin.
There’s usually a tow-headed young child or two playing around his legs or nearby while he talks to you. He scoops one up under his arm and into the tractor with him to sit on his lap while he loads. Each time I’ve come he tells me he’s getting good at what he does, but next season will be even better. He’s been more focused on healthy soil for traditional flower and vegetable gardens but he’s getting interested in native and rock garden soils because customers have come looking for it. And he’s excited about some rock he’s located with magnetic properties that he says seriously promote plant growth.
I spread a lot of the dairy compost around my trees and in some garden beds before the cold wave and our first measly snow of the year – at least it was measly here. I need help with the rest but today the truck is full of snow. Back in September when I asked a local hay farmer what he thought about our fall and winter weather this year he said, “Open, not a lot of storms. That’s what the Farmers Almanac says.” Until today that’s been accurate.
I also heard from a local farmer that we need spring and summer storms with lightning for the hay to grow well. That’s how nitrogen gets to the soil.
You may have recently read or heard The Farmers Almanac’s announcement that after publishing an annual magazine since 1818, next year will be its final year in print. Based in Lewiston, Maine, the periodical, offering long range weather forecasts, tips and articles on gardening, fishing, star gazing, and more, cites “the growing financial challenges of production and distribution in today’s chaotic media environment.” Their website will also shut down this month. But there are two Farmers Almanacs.
The Old Farmers Almanac: “Useful, with a pleasant degree of humor”, began publishing similar content with annual long range weather forecasts, gardening tips, astronomical data, tide charts, home remedies, folklore and more even earlier, in 1792. Based in New Hampshire, it is still going strong.
My friend Gail Felzein, whose garden is more like a full blown arboretum in a very challenging environment in Sterling, CO, sent me some seeds for an unusual clematis (Fargesoides), similar to ‘Sweet Autumn’ (C. paniculata) but smaller and earlier to bloom, as well as the beautiful but hard-to-find yellow ‘Molly the Witch’ peony (Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii - shown in photo above)
She says they’re not difficult to start but we’ll see. She also says any plant she can grow there, in Sterling’s really difficult conditions, should do even better where I live on the Front Range. She also gave me starts of the Russian Almond (prunus tenella), a very tough but beautiful, pink, early spring blooming shrub that does well for her. It’s different - fragrant and tougher - than the lovely flowering almond (prunus triloba) I got from Harlequins Gardens years ago. I’ve seen it listed for sale at Tagawa Gardens and Bailey Nursery but you might find it elsewhere too.
I haven’t gotten into the swing of the upcoming holiday but I know that garden centers are fully decked out and delightful to visit this time of year. Nothing like a warm, humid greenhouse full of tropicals to boost your mood on a freezing cold day.
I enjoyed the Day 2 of the 10th Annual Pollinator Summit last month at CU Boulder. Our web designer, Idelle Fisher, attended on Day 1. This year for the first time, conference organizers did not shy away from presenting hard evidence of the negative impact of pesticides on pollinators and other insects, including their impact on birds which depend on insects for food. Other countries have banned neonicotinoid pesticides for years in light of their indisputable links to alarmingly steep declines in bees and other insect populations, but they are still used widely all over the USA despite the damning evidence. These aren’t the only challenge facing pollinators but it was refreshing to see them faced head-on for a change.
Several stellar organizations including PPAN (People & Pollinators Action Network) and The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation among others, joined together to put on a lively and engaging conference, “Empowered for Pollinators”.
The focus was to:
• Connect researchers and practitioners to propose solutions for the many challenges facing Colorado’s pollinators
• Envision the next 10 years of progress for pollinator conservation
• Explore how our state can leverage recent successes to do more for pollinator conservation
See Idelle’s and my (briefer) wrap-ups below.
Keith Funk is taking a holiday break so I’ve included some Q&A material from Kelly Grummons’ still relevant columns from past print issues.
I hope you all have a warm and peaceful Solstice, Christmas, Hannukah, and whatever other sacred holidays you observe with people you love.
- Jane Shellenberger
10th Annual Pollinator Summit Wrap-up Day One
By Idelle Fisher:
Dr. Samuel Ramsey of CU's Boulder Bee Lab was the engaging keynote speaker on the first day of this year’s Pollinator Summit. With a good dose of humor, he addressed the “wrong bees" topic, describing how our non-native honeybees have gotten a bad rap in recent years because they can negatively affect our important native bees.
Honeybees are important for agriculture, but he stressed how vital it is to treat honeybees like pets or livestock with proper management so that pathogen spillover and competition with native pollinators can be prevented. He emphasized that IF you decide to keep bees, not only do you need to be a GOOD beekeeper and keep them healthy, but it is also essential to add more native flowers to your landscape to reduce competition so that all bees can thrive. Some of the natives he suggested planting included asters (Blanketflower, Goldenrods), mints (Monarda/BeeBalm, Agastache) and legumes (Lupinus, Vicia/Vetch), plus other shrubs and flowers like Penstemons that bloom throughout the season to provide food for all bees.
10th Annual Pollinator Summit Wrap-up Day Two
By Jane Shellenberger:
Dr. Jonathan Lundgren—agroecologist, Director of ECDYSIS Foundation, and CEO of Blue Dasher Farm, was the keynote speaker on Day 2. A working farmer, Lundgren stressed that we don’t have a bee problem, we have a soil and diversity problem. Farmers are supposed to be stewards of life, he said, yet we are killing our soil (and our pollinators) - and our farmers. He discussed the “1000 Farms Initiative” a survey which included 1700 farms in 38 states; 120 of these were farms in Colorado. Results show that our farmers are experiencing depression, anxiety, allergies and asthma at levels much higher than the national average. He said that farmers thought Science could help but that scientific research has been suppressed by the USDA. “We need to change our methods instead of supporting a broken system… Scientists need to be farmers and beekeepers.”
The current agriculture system has resulted in widespread pesticide contamination (30% of land in eastern Colorado is planted with neonics, for example), and collapse (Florida citrus production for example). Neonic contamination is spreading everywhere including into wild deer and predator populations. On the other hand, Regenerative Agriculture celebrates life and biodiversity. Its outcomes include: Climate cleanup, improved nutrition, carbon sinks, reduced pollution, better water infiltration. “We need to grow food, not commodities... on smaller, better farms.”
By Kelly Grummons
Q: We love our succulent pots. We bring them indoors every winter. They are hard to keep healthy in our house. When I put them back outside in June, they are leggy and ugly. How can I do better with this? By the time they’ve recovered from their winter trauma, it’s winter again!
A: Succulents are so popular and beautiful. When you bring them indoors for the winter, put them in as much sun as possible. If possible, keep them sunny and cool. A sunny mud room or extra bedroom would work great. Shut the heat vent so that the room stays much cooler. Only water sparingly and the plants should be in much better condition when it’s time to take them back outdoors.
Alternatively, consider using winter-hardy succulents that you can leave outdoors year around. These would include hardy cacti plants like Opuntia, Echinocereus and Escobaria. Mix them with hardy succulents such as Sedum varieties, Hens and Chicks varieties, ice plants and Orostachys. Keep the pots relatively dry all winter. If possible, pull the pot back near the house to offer a little protection. Succulents and cacti in pots are more vibrant and flower more if you fertilize them. Apply alfalfa meal or fish emulsion fertilizer every three weeks or so from May through August. Let the pots dry out between waterings to avoid rotting of the roots. Cut back the plants as needed to keep them bushy and beautiful.
Gardening Events
Check our Colorado Gardener Calendar for our list of events including seed swaps, gardening classes, webinars, garden tours, plant sales, and conventions.
Coming up:
Holiday Market at Harlequins Gardens
Every Thurs-Sun now thru Dec 21st, 10am-5pm
Boulder County Seed Swap
Jan 4th in Boulder
Do you have a Colorado Gardening event to submit to us?
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