I used to have a large garden when we lived in Pennsylvania. My husband, Mr. FS let’s call him, built me eight large, raised beds with a wooden slat fence all around it, and I had a few years of gardening bliss until we had to move back to Colorado, where I figured I’d never have much success. It’s a shorter growing season, and the weather is just generally harsher. Also, my neighbors all seemed to have either gardens they’d abandoned or gardens that the local wildlife ate more out of than they did.

But then COVID happened, and we found ourselves at home a lot more, and we also began to wonder how scarce some things could potentially become after watching the nation in general DISSOLVE INTO UTTER CHAOS over the slightest possibility that they might run out of toilet paper. And then there was that month when all the chicken got hoarded. I’m not quite sure I ever saw the produce department emptied out, but I did notice that things started to rise in price. During World War II, everyone planted Victory gardens. Today, everyone’s planting COVID gardens. If ever there was a time to give high altitude gardening a try, it was now.

So Mr. FS said: if I built you some raised beds, would you consider a garden this year? And I said: sure, but I’m going to want you to build me some beds that are well protected from the deer. And the rabbits. And the moles. Basically, I didn’t want to put in the effort and then watch all the woodland animals eat everything before we could. So we drew up some rough plans on the whiteboard in what used to be our homeschool room but has evolved into Mr. FS’s home office. We came up with what I like to call raised bed fortresses. They’re 4 by 4 foot squares, with 5 foot fencing all around and two doors on each side. I also asked Mr. FS to line each bed with gopher wire underneath the dirt so that rabbit and moles (which we have plenty of around here) couldn’t dig underneath the wood to get in that way, and we added two layers of chickenwire on the tops to hopefully deflect any overly large hailstones. We had one hail storm in June that ripped a lot of the young plants to shreds, but since then, they’ve recovered nicely.

So, I’ve spent the summer learning how to garden at 7,400 feet. It snowed on June 9, and we had that hail storm, but other than that, it’s been okay. We’ve enjoyed the project, and now have plans to expand quite a bit next year. I forgot how much I loved gardening. I can spend hours out there just puttering around, whether I’m planting or weeding or harvesting something. Or maybe I didn’t forget. Maybe I just didn’t let myself think about it too much — how much I missed my Pennsylvania garden. Mr. FS is happy for me, and also happy to eat fresh homegrown vegetables once again.

Last night I picked a bunch of green beans for dinner and they were just so much better than what’s available at the grocery store. (The beans are actually one of the items that prompted me to ask for the FORTRESSES. Back in Pennsylvania, it was a constant battle with the rabbits, trying to get a decent crop of them. The bush beans, and pole beans, all are housed in the protected beds.)

It’s been a fairly large undertaking, and we’re actually still not finished. Three out of four beds are built, but only two have doors on them. The third is ready for doors but Mr. FS has been too busy with work to finish. So I planted things that deer generally don’t like in that bed: zucchini, bell pepper, and tomatoes.

The zucchini have taken over, and the tomato plants are actually getting nibbled down by some animal out there. But we’re still able to harvest plenty for ourselves. So I can’t complain. Actually, I’ve decided to NOT complain. We’ll get these things finished at some point. I find that I’m in no particular hurry. Gardening isn’t something that lends itself to HURRYING. Gardening is more about puttering. Thinking. Tasting.

Discovering.