Boundless Landscapes

24/02/2023

After four seasons of supporting Boulder residents as they grow food in their gardens, we know there is much more work to be done in our community. We are acutely aware of the increasing fires, the drought, and the importance of conserving water whenever possible, and we see a need in the community for a broader vision and a new team. Specifically, there is a need for collective action to transform the Colorado Landscape into a safer, healthier, and more sustainable place to thrive. So Boundless Landscapes is handing off our work and our learnings to a new local company, ClimateScaping.com, that is supporting residents as they thoughtfully transform their landscapes. ClimateScaping helps residents and small businesses use new state rebate incentives to remove their water-wasting grass lawns and replace them with three offerings: FoodScapes, FireScapes, and ClimateScapes.

As I transition from my role as Co-founder and CEO of Boundless Landscapes into an advisory role with ClimateScaping, I’m delighted to hand the reins over to Tara O’Brien, Founder of ClimateScaping and I’m thrilled to stay involved in these efforts I care deeply about as they evolve under Tara’s leadership.

This shift will allow me to focus my attention on my work as an Adjunct Professor and Coach in the program at CU Boulder, where I have the great privilege of working with graduate students focused on sustainability who are our climate leaders of the future, and on my volunteer and consulting work.

Leading Boundless Landscapes has been a joy! We’ve collaborated with, worked for, and learned from extraordinary people. We've had wonderful employees, including our teen apprentice farmers. We’ve partnered with incredible local organizations, programs, and companies tagged here. This work is far from done, but it’s hopeful work that is grounded in the idea that by working together we can turn the world into a garden. We’re confident that ClimateScaping will build upon our vision for the future in new and exciting ways to make an ever-greater impact on the local community and the natural environment. Thank you for being part of the Boundless community!

27/05/2022

Thinking about pollinators as you plant up your veggie gardens? If so, we have some tips for you from Farmer Fern. "Certain herbs attract many pollinators, including dill, cilantro, thyme, chives, marigolds, nasturtium, and hyssop. Some of my other favorite pollinator-supporting plants are bee balm, hummingbird sage, butterfly w**d (large, bush-like plant), coreopsis, serviceberries (edible fruit), penstemon (many local nurseries carry native varieties), native-milkw**d (also available at many local nurseries, excellent to plant for migrating monarchs), crandalls clove currants (edible berries) and coneflower. For gardeners with a lot of room, planting pollinator-attracting shrubs and trees are also great (honeylocust, chokecherry, and goldenrod are a few examples)." If you're interested in supporting native pollinators, we recommend visiting a local nursery to ask which organic plants they have that are native to the area. Fern says, "Many native plants thrive in native soils, but may struggle in a garden bed with irrigation and fertilizer. For this reason, herbs and smaller flowers are a great way to attract pollinators inside your vegetable garden beds." Please keep in mind that any plants you buy that are intended to attract and support pollinators should absolutely be bought from a pesticide-free nursery to avoid exposing pollinators to pesticides, fungicides, and insecticides that can kill them, even if the plants themselves is thriving!

27/05/2022

It's almost time for our next monthly Ask the Farmer session. A recent participant had this to say: "The Ask the Farmer session really boosted my appreciation for my own garden. I've got a new sense of confidence and purpose. Looking forward to the next session." It looks like the freezing temps in Boulder have passed, for now, gardens are being planted up like crazy, and now the real fun begins. You get to watch your seeds germinate in the soil, watch the first flowers and fruits emerge, and welcome back the bees and butterflies. It's also when we get a lot of questions about irritation (how often, when, how much), pests, soil building, succession planting, trellising, harvesting, and more. If you have some questions and you want clear, actionable answers, please join us for Ask the Farmer via Zoom on June 6, 6:30-7:30 pm MT (https://bit.ly/3PG6Usp). Every month, all season long, we’ll offer one-hour sessions during which we invite you to bring your burning veggie, herb, fruit, and flower growing questions and leave with the resources, knowledge, and ideas you'll need to steward a thriving garden this season and beyond. The sessions are led by Farmer Fern, who has deep gardening and farming knowledge and is a fantastic teacher. The cost is $15 and it's limited to 10 participants. If you'd like to join but the cost is a barrier, please DM us; scholarships are absolutely available!

27/05/2022

After last week's spring snow, the season is in full swing. We spent the week gathering and distributing seeds and seedlings carefully sourced from Masa Seed Foundation and Cure Organic Farm for home gardens. We worked with home gardeners to plan custom veggie, herb, and flower gardens based on what they want to grow and eat this season, how much sun their gardens get, what they grew last year and where they grew it, and much more. Some of our homeowner and renter partners have decided to grow their own food this year (that’s the ultimate goal!) with some support and coaching from us, while for others we've offered referrals to local, women-owned landscaping companies that can help them with maintenance throughout the year. We love helping people gain the confidence over time to grow their own food. We love providing just enough support to make it a less scary and/or frustrating proposition. And above all else, we absolutely love watching more and more people grow their own food for their families, their neighbors, the broader community, the pollinators, and the planet. What's in your garden this season? Photos are of Sarah and Rachel preparing a veggie and herb garden in downtown Boulder and baby basil plants at Cure Organic Farm.

29/04/2022

We thought it would be fun to provide weekly garden tips to help you grow healthy, happy soil and food. Thanks to Farmer Fern for putting them together! Here’s tip #1: Don't forget to apply two inches of compost to your garden beds in the springtime. Keep in mind, compost from a bag or a municipal source is often high in salts—watering the compost thoroughly and letting it sit overnight (or adding it to the beds a couple of weeks before planting) is a great way to flush out the salts that can negatively affect seed germination! Happy growing!

04/04/2022

We're offering our popular "Ask the Farmer" sessions again this year. Each month we'll offer a one-hour session during which we invite a small group of participants to bring their burning veggie, herb, fruit, and flower growing questions and leave with the resources, knowledge, and ideas you'll need to steward a thriving garden this season and beyond. The sessions will be led by Farmer Fern, who has deep gardening and farming knowledge and is a fantastic teacher. The first session is Monday, April 11, 6:30-7:30 PM MT. The cost is $15 and it's limited to 10 participants. Live outside of Colorado? You're still welcome to join us! Register at www.eventbrite.com/e/ask-the-farmer-spring-garden-prep-guidance-support-tickets-305120522697. REGISTRATION IS LIMITED TO 10 PARTICIPANTS TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE'S QUESTIONS GET ANSWERED, SO GRAB YOUR SPOT NOW. Can't make it to Ask the Farmer? We also offer one-one-one virtual coaching sessions to help you learn, problem solve, and plan for the season ahead. Learn more and sign up at www.boundlesslandscapes.com/learn. One of last year's Ask the Farmer participants had this to say: "Ask the Farmer is so helpful and wonderful. I'm so impressed with not only how knowledgeable Farmer Fern is, but also how engaging and personable she is. Wow!”

29/07/2021

This is Anna. She is one of our homeowner partners and an experienced gardener. She has a beautiful micro-farm with eight raised beds where she's growing zucchini, winter squash, watermelon, carrots, beets, beans, basil, tomatoes, cucumbers, fennel, pollinator-friendly flowers, and so much more. We're sharing the work of tending the garden with Anna—we tend her garden every other week and she does it on the weeks we're not there. This makes the work of growing food feel more manageable for Anna. We love lightening the load so growing food doesn't feel overwhelming and homeowners can spend less time stressing and more time experiencing the joy and appreciating the beauty of their gardens.

29/07/2021

We love leaving these little sticky notes for our homeowner partners to let them know what's ready for harvest. Last year we did all the harvesting, but this year we're getting so much joy out of supporting our partners as they get their hands in the plants, soil under their fingernails, and the rush of gathering the bounty to enjoy with family and friends. What are you harvesting this week? 📸 Madeline

14/07/2021

Farmer Katie from and the Food Security Project harvested 1,200 heads of garlic from the garlic Boundless Landscapes planted last fall at McKenzie Farm. These beauties will be available to the people Community Food Share reaches once the garlic has finished curing. Want to get involved? Consider donating some of the food you're growing in your garden to Community Food Share or another organization, like or , that provides nourishment to those facing food insecurity. Or, consider volunteering or making a donation to support these important efforts. We're proud to be a partner in the Food Security Project along with and ! Thanks to last year's Boundless Landscapes team for getting all that garlic planted up last fall!

21/06/2021

"In some ways, it’s odd that we need an awareness campaign at all. Young children are invariably enchanted by insects, especially brightly colored insects that float through the air as if made of air itself, as if painted by fairies and set free on the wind to make wishes come true. "

Stop using pesticides, in your butterfly garden and everywhere else.

14/06/2021

This front yard in-ground micro-farm in Boulder is ready to burst! Check out all that garlic in the front. We planted garlic in the fall and it will be ready for harvest in the next few weeks. There are perennial flowers we planted last year (the first year for this micro-farm) that will return this year…and we've added marigolds and zinnias. Later in the summer, this micro-farm will be overflowing with lettuce, winter squash, cucumbers, borage, herbs galore, tomatoes, kale, and more. So much food in small spaces. How big is your garden? What are you most excited to grow this season?

10/06/2021

This is Lodi, and we just finished installing a micro-farm in her backyard, along with those lovely hoops and the trellis. She helped us get everything planted up this week, including corn, cucumbers, hot peppers, carrots, radishes, lettuce, marigolds, tomatoes, basil, calendula, pumpkins, kale, and chard, all in 96 square feet! We asked Lodi why she wanted a micro-farm in her yard, and she said, “We want to change our relationship to the planet. We want our son to know where his food comes from and to be part of mending the culture.” Thanks to our installation partner, .

17/05/2021

We're thrilled that Boundless Landscapes is a partner on this important project. Do you plan to donate food from your veggie garden this season? Or, do you want to volunteer with the Food Security Project? If so, you can sign up with Community Food Share.

Burgess Group launches the Food Security Project in Boulder to fight food insecurity with Commnity Food Share and other organizations.

13/05/2021

Installed a whole bunch of pretty trellises today designed by . This is the “before” photo. Now imagine them crawling with veggie vines and pollinator-friendly flowers before long.

10/05/2021

Time to get creative for the sake of people and the planet. We're thrilled to be turning lawns into food for the community! "Lawns are the single largest irrigated crop in the U.S., covering nearly 32 million acres. But green lawns don’t actually produce any crops you would find in edible gardens.

On the other hand, fruits and vegetables grow on only about 10 million acres in the United States. This means the space that American lawns occupy could provide enough land to grow three times as many fruits and vegetables if utilized properly."

Have you ever wondered what would happen if we turned all our lawns into edible gardens? Learn why edible gardens are better than lawns.

01/05/2021

We're offering a donation-based “Grow Your Own: Culinary Mushrooms” session on May 11 with Michael Heim of , and you're invited! Have you been curious to learn what it takes to successfully cultivate culinary mushrooms on the Front Range? Want to know which types of mushrooms are most likely to grow successfully in your yard? Michael will answer these questions and address the supplies and materials you’ll need, as well as the various inoculation methods you’ll want to consider. We’ll save time for questions and answers during this donation-based session. Link in bio to register.

28/04/2021

This is Gardener Gayle and her trusty broadfork—an invaluable tool for small scale farming and gardening superheroes 👩‍🌾. She has teamed up with Boundless to offer coaching sessions for home micro-farmers who need support, encouragement, next steps, solutions, and more. Her amazing team is also helping us get our micro-farms prepped for planting when Mother Nature says is time. They’re adding compost, removing invasive w**ds, turning in cover crops like rye and clover, and more. Gayle also had her own gardening company, , where she specializes in edible and perennial garden design.

27/04/2021

It may not look like much, but it makes us smile! As the garlic emerges in the springtime (especially this spring) it's a helpful reminder of the fact that what we plant usually grows, and that it might require patience. As the Boundless team (.nall and ) lovingly planted thousands of garlic cloves in late October with lots of mulch, it was hard to imagine the plants that would emerge many months later. Patience is required to grow garlic and so is a cold spell. And then it happens, the shoots emerge, they smell good, the bulbs grow, the foliage begins to yellow, and in June they will be harvested. Eight months later, but they're worth the wait!

27/04/2021

It may not look like much, but it makes us smile! As the garlic emerges in the springtime (especially this spring) it's a helpful reminder of the fact that what we plant usually grows, and that it might require patience. As the Boundless team lovingly planted thousands of garlic cloves in late October with lots of mulch, it was hard to imagine the plants that would emerge many months later. Patience is required to grow garlic and so is a cold spell. And then it happens, the shoots emerge, they smell good, the bulbs grow, the foliage begins to yellow, and in June they will be harvested. Eight months later, but they're worth the wait!

22/04/2021

It's Earth Day and we're doing what we love to do: Installing micro-farms and setting folks up with everything they need to grow food in their yards. We're grateful for the immense privilege of doing this work to turn underutilized spaces into thriving food gardens full of veggies and pollinator-friendly flowers, healthy soil, and the seeds of new ways of thinking about the food we eat, the way we connect with our communities, and the ways we build social and environmental resilience together. This is a photo of Kathleen in her yard. She's our newest micro-farm partner. We'll build and install her micro-farm, fill it with soil, add the irrigation, maybe a trellis, and then she and her family will take it over, planting produce they love, spending an hour each week tending it, and harvesting the bounty for themselves and to donate. Here's what Kathleen said about why she's building a micro-farm in her yard: "Sustainability is what inspires me—supporting the environment and the local community while educating my kids." Do you micro-farm? What inspires you?

15/04/2021

We're delighted to be part of this exciting partnership to get fresh, local food to community members who need it!

Of all the groceries we send into neighbors’ pantries and refrigerators and of all the ingredients we donate to local meal programs, 75% are either fresh fruits and vegetables or foods that are high in protein (meat, milk, yogurt, beans, etc.). That’s because we put just as much time, energy, an...

08/04/2021

Spring has sprung! First 2021 micro-farm installation today. We’ll be installing micro-farms through May, so give a holler if you want to get on the list. Thanks to Produce Denver for your installation partnership!

30/03/2021

We're over the moon about the increasing number of folks growing their own food, and we're eager to make it easy for you to say "yes", by providing a bit of a safety net wherever you might need it. With this in mind, we're offering spring garden prep appointments on April 26-28. Here's the deal: April is a great month to prepare your veggie beds for the season ahead. During our garden prep visits we add compost and other amendments to help you build healthy soil and create a nutrient-rich home for your veggies. We "chop and drop" any cover crops you grew over the winter months and clean up your beds, removing invasive w**ds and branches, incorporating dead plant matter, and tidying up your irrigation system. If you wish, we'll also add a thin layer of wood chips to reduce w**d growth, increase soil moisture, help maintain the optimal soil temperature, and make your gardens look lovely as you wait for the plants to begin to grow! We have a limited number of spots available, and pricing depends on the size and condition of your garden. You can learn more here: boundlesslandscapes.com/tend. 📷

30/03/2021

Are you getting your garden ready for the season, but stuck on the question of what exact you should do? Here's a little early spring garden tip for anyone who might be interested: You may already know that growing nutrient-dense organic veggies begins with healthy soil. Growing healthy soil, rich in organic matter, microbes, and nutrients, also helps prevent disease and pests, while retaining water better. But, you may be wondering how to make sure your soil is healthy. A simple option is to get a soil test. If you live in Colorado, you can use the lab at Colorado State University (soiltestinglab.colostate.edu). This is a busy season, so we recommend sending in your soil sample as soon as possible. The test results will give you a great snapshot of your soil fertility and actionable next steps to optimize nutrient levels, pH balance, and more. This is a great activity to do with kids and teens! We hope to share simple tips and tricks to build you veggie-growing confidence throughout the season. Any burning questions or topics you hope we'll cover? 📷

29/03/2021

We are still reeling from the tragic events of last week and focusing on work can be difficult, but we’re finding solace in the soil. While it may seem silly to think about gardens at a moment like this, I am reminded of another heartbreaking day, many years ago. I was living in Brooklyn, NY and it was September 12, 2001. We were asked to stay home, not go to work, and not overwhelm the first responders by trying to help. So, stuck at home and with our hearts breaking, my husband and I, and Josh Tosteson (one of the Boundless Landscapes co-founders), made a veggie garden in the backyard of our Brooklyn brownstone. On that day, and looking back now, it was clear that connecting with nature, getting our hands in the dirt, and growing something to nourish ourselves and our community is a deeply appropriate response to pain, confusion, and fear. And so I humbly invite you, at this moment, to join us in the healing work of growing food in our yards.

23/03/2021

We are sitting with deep sadness today for the violence that made its way into our community. Our hearts break for everyone who has been touched by the violence and fear. Today we find ourselves ever more committed to creating as much beauty, hope, and connection in this world as we possibly can. But for now, we send love and support to all who are suffering and will find ways to be of service, offer support, and take action. 📷 Kirsten Boyer Photography

22/03/2021

We paid a little visit to the farm stand this weekend to pick up fresh arugula and baby kale, along with duck eggs, beef, and other goodies. If you haven't been in a while, please go and support local farmers like Anne who are growing yummy food for the community. We also wanted to check on the lovely little seedlings they're growing for the five pre-planned veggie gardens we've designed to make it super easy for all of you to grow your own food this season. What’s the concept? We are all about removing the barriers to growing food in yards. So, we're making it easy for you to order your complete veggie gardens now and then chill until you pick them up in mid to late May after the last chance of frost. Then we'll give you a preparation, planting, and care guide, including step-by-step instructions and a detailed map for planting your garden for success. You can see the five designs at boundlesslandscapes.com/plant. We’re offering the Shady Greens, Trellis, Summer Bounty, Salsa, and Autumn Harvest Gardens. Supplies are limited, so we suggest ordering as soon as possible to guarantee you can get the one you want. We've also partnered with the folks at for the regionally adapted seeds you'll receive with your veggie garden orders. Here's to good food in yards, amazing local farmers, and a beautiful season ahead.

21/03/2021

This warms our hearts! So glad the beautiful land at Community United Church of Christ will be used to feed those who struggle with food insecurity. Yippee!

Thank you to the crew who showed up to kick off our new adventure with planting a garden on our property that feeds the hungry in Boulder county! We are forever grateful to Boundless Landscapes for bringing this idea to us last year and for changing us for the better. Collaboration is community!

16/03/2021

Who doesn't want a veggie growing support group? Our early spring series starts this Sunday, so grab your spot now. Visit boundlesslandscapes.com/learn to register. We're offering a $10 discount to our FB friends through March 18 with promo code "ALMOSTSPRING". Bring your burning questions, learn from the questions others ask, and gain a sense of community around the joys (and challenges) of growing food on the Front Range. You’ll meet bi-weekly over Zoom, beginning on March 21, with Farmer Fern who served as our director of farm operations in 2019 and 2020. This group will help you get your season off to a great start! Wondering how to prep your beds, where to source seeds and seedlings, what and when to plant, how to grow lots of food in small spaces? We can definitely help! Please help us spread the word. There are so many people wanting to grow their own food these days and we want to make sure they're as successful as possible. If cost is a barrier, please reach out for scholarship info! Teenagers are welcome!