water quality and growing season (Boise, Nampa: buy, live in, garden) - Idaho (ID) - City-Data Forum

aukijoli · 01-10-2010, 02:30 AM

This is my first post, though my husband and I have been scouring the forum for hours upon hours, and havent found anything on this topic thus far.
We will be moving to Idaho this summer, and visiting next month. We are

considering Boise area as well as others and will be growing our food to supply most of our families needs. Does anyone here have any experience with fairly large gardens? What is the soil like? clay, rocky, fertile, etc.
Do you have to start with seedlings? Are there any orchards that do well in the area? Also, we are looking for small acreage and I realize it can vary tremendously, but has anyone had problems with their wells drying up or having to drill 100's of feet to hit water? Also, for a short stint we might be staying in town, whats the water quality of boise? Do they fluoridate?
Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you!

gwin13 · 01-10-2010, 09:00 AM

No Experience with a garden, But did grow up on the Fam Farm. The soil is very good (volcanic). You can start with plants or seedlings they both do well in the area. In the far western Treasure Valley is where most of the orchards are(45 min from Boise). My grand father lives in the Caldwell/Sandhollow area and has since the 60's and has never had well problems. His well is in the 150' range and from what I understand is a deeper well than most. The drinking water in Boise is chlorinated and not very good. I know that there are places that use ditch water to irrigate and that water is fine... other than you do get alot of weeds from it.

Torrie · 01-10-2010, 10:30 AM

I've gardened quite a bit since moving to Idaho and I've found raised beds to work best. You have better control over the soil and no rocks to contend with. You could put several in and have a high yield of produce to feed your family, then you don't have to worry about the soil quality not to mention you'll have better control over the weeds. One bonus of this area is you have a long growing season. It's nothing to have warm weather all the way into October. You can grow just about anything your heart desires. I grow most things from plant starts rather than seeds as I don't have the time or space to handle all the trays. Of course you can put them in the ground, but depending on what our Spring weather is like you might have to wait till May in order to avoid having them frost. The only seeds I use are pumpkin, beets, carrots and sometimes lettuce. I'm sure you can do others, that's just what has worked for my set up. Several nurseries in the area will provide starts to get you going so no issues there.

The water isn't bad tasting compared to some areas such as CA. Probably the best thing to do is buy a Berkey water system and that will completely filter the water you drink so you don't have to worry about pollutants. You could also consider putting in a reverse osmosis system and that would take care of everything. I don't think they add fluoride to our water here, surprisingly, at least yet they don't. Take a look at this:

http://www.deq.state.id.us/WATER/assist_citizen_comm/fluoride_brochure.pdf (broken link)

If you have well water you'll want to have it tested every six months especially if you live within a farming community. It's not uncommon to have arsenic leach in the ground water from the fertilizers that are being used. Some acreage properties will have access to irrigation water which is a bonus, especially if you live within the city limits as it's cheaper.

aukijoli · 01-10-2010, 11:20 AM

Thanks Torrie for the reply
I looked at the link, and it does appear that alot of Idaho is not fluoridated, still looking into specific areas. Our family has used the Multipure system for years, and its a wonderful solid carbon block system, but it wont remove fluoride since it is technically a mineral.
It does look like perhaps raised beds are what alot of Idahoans do. For a quarter acre garden that could be quite expensive though. Its good to hear that the growing season is quite long.
Do you know of anyone successfully maintaining orchards and/or vineyards?

aukijoli · 01-10-2010, 11:29 AM

Thanks for that info, what are the growing conditions of Nampa?

Torrie · 01-10-2010, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aukijoli

Thanks Torrie for the reply
I looked at the link, and it does appear that alot of Idaho is not fluoridated, still looking into specific areas. Our family has used the Multipure system for years, and its a wonderful solid carbon block system, but it wont remove fluoride since it is technically a mineral.
It does look like perhaps raised beds are what alot of Idahoans do. For a quarter acre garden that could be quite expensive though. Its good to hear that the growing season is quite long.
Do you know of anyone successfully maintaining orchards and/or vineyards?

I don't personally know of anyone, but they're out there. You'll find most of the orchards to be outside the Boise area in farming districts such as Caldwell, Marsing & Emmett. As far as vineyards go, are you growing for pleasure or business? If you're growing for business you would probably be better served getting property in the designated AVA region(American Viticulture Area), known as the Snake River Valley Region.

Snake River Valley Wine Region

I'm sure you can grow in various areas, I've seen properties where people do it for fun... I can think of one in particular that's up in the foothills.....haven't tried anyone's personal stash as of yet to give you an outcome.

You should have the same growing conditions in Nampa as it's not much further from Boise....same with several of the outlying areas such as Caldwell, Marsing and most of the time Emmett as far as the weather goes.

aukijoli · 01-10-2010, 12:49 PM

Torrie
Thanks, we are just wanting to plant for our own family. Weve had our own grape vines to harvest from and enjoy the fruit and juice (no wine here) very much. Same with fruit trees, just personal use. We live in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and here we can grow vegs, berries, fruit and nut trees as well as grapes and hoping that we would find that possibility in Idaho as it has pretty much everything else we want: Politics, laws, C of L, beauty, laid back attitude, etc...

Alp-Nub · 01-11-2010, 12:14 PM

I am on the west end of Boise and grow a fair sized garden.
My grapes produce well when I prune them properly.
The peach trees have done excellent the last few years.
The apples seem to blossom during a freeze so I get mixed results from year to year. Japaneese plums also have mixed results. Italian plums always do well.
Apricots usually freeze at my house, but I always see good producing trees on my work commute.

Most of my vegetables I plant direct in April and May - depending on hardiness. Tomatoes and peppers I plant as starts or use Wall o Waters. I have had artichokes overwinter with leaf compost put over them in the fall.

I have irrigation water from a ditch for my place.

My well is about 50' deep with static water at 12' below the surface.

aukijoli · 01-13-2010, 02:33 PM

Thanks for your reply,
Your post was very helpful! Is your garden raised? what type of soil do you have?

Alp-Nub · 01-15-2010, 08:00 AM

Mine is not raised. I do have a couple of raised beds with strawberries, but they dry out faster than the rest. Being on ditch irrigaiton, my time for the water is once a week so I give a very deep watering then. The raised beds require a mid week watering from my well. Also the young plants require extra watering until they are well established.

My garden is the standard volcanic soil over a bed of sand-gravel-rock. One side of the garden I turn up new rocks to be picked out every time iI till. The other side is a little deeper soil. I put a good layer of leaves on it each fall and scatter chicken manure over that and till it all in in the spring.