Editorial policy
How Thin Air Harvest chooses sources, handles frost dates, names cultivars, corrects errors, and keeps advertising separate from the tables.
Thin Air Harvest publishes practical gardening guidance for a specific region. The standard is that a careful reader can tell where a fact came from, and can tell a station statistic from a recommendation. This page is the working rule for every article, calendar, and category introduction.
Sources we prefer
Land-grant extension publications come first: Colorado State University, Utah State University, Montana State University, the University of Idaho, the University of Wyoming, and New Mexico State University. Climate numbers come from those publications or from the agencies they rely on, including the Colorado Climate Center, NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, the National Weather Service, and the Wyoming State Climate Office. Plant-introduction programs are cited as programs. Plant Select is a real collaboration of Denver Botanic Gardens and Colorado State University. A plant that passed through that program is described as trialed for the region, which is not the same thing as being native.
A blog post, a seed-catalog description, or a national roundup is not used as the source of a frost date. Those sources are full of averaged or unsourced numbers. If a page cannot point at a station table, it does not invent one.
How frost dates are written
A frost date on this site always carries four labels when the source provides them: the station name, the temperature threshold (usually 32°F), the probability if the table has one, and the publication. The middle date in the older NOAA occurrence tables is the median. The later spring date is the 1-in-10 late case, the date after which only about one year in ten still records a last freeze. Pages say that in prose so a median is not mistaken for a guarantee.
Different publications cover different years. A University of Wyoming spring table and a National Weather Service fall table are not subtracted to manufacture a frost-free day count. Where a publication itself prints frost-free days, as University of Idaho bulletins do for some towns, those days are quoted and attributed. Readers are told to confirm the current map at the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map because zone and season length are different questions, and map vintages change.
Microclimate gets the last word. Cold-air drainage, a south wall, an irrigated pasture uphill, and the urban warmth of a downtown block all move the night temperature. The calendars say so every time they give a planting window.
Cultivars, products, and pesticides
Cultivars are named when they illustrate a class: a short-season tomato, a long-day onion, a hardneck garlic, a primocane raspberry, a prairie-hardy apple. The name is an example, not a trophy. CSU releases such as the potatoes Sangre and Purple Majesty are identified as releases of that program. The site does not claim a yield trial it did not conduct.
This version contains no affiliate links and no paid product placement. Tools are described by function. “A half-inch hardware cloth apron” is a specification, not a brand.
Pesticide and herbicide rates are intentionally absent. Labels, restricted-use rules, and resistance guidance change, and a stale rate is worse than none. Articles name the pest and point to extension for the current control options. The same restraint applies to fertilizer pounds and to water law. Colorado’s residential rain-barrel statute is summarized from the state engineer and CSU Extension because it is specific and easy to misstate. Other states are sent to their own water agencies rather than given a borrowed rule.
Originality and duplication
Each article has one job. The Front Range calendar holds the Front Range station table. The page on reading a spring forecast explains how to use a probability table, with a single worked station, and links out for the rest. Crop pages do not repeat the full calendar. Category introductions explain how to choose among the articles. They are not shortened copies of them.
Corrections
Errors are corrected on the page. A material change to a number is reason to update the “updated” date. The contact address is contact@thinairharvest.com. A correction note should cite the source. We do not publish a named personal byline, a fictional reviewer, or a testimonial.
Advertising
Pages include the Google AdSense account meta tag and a commented script so the site can be reviewed for approval. The script is not active. No page contains an advertisement box. If auto ads are enabled later, they will load through Google’s script and will not be written into the articles as product endorsements. Commercial relationships, if any ever exist, will be disclosed on this page before they are reflected in a recommendation. None exist in this version.
Scope
The editorial team does not provide individual diagnosis, landscape design, or legal advice. County extension remains the local authority. Thin Air Harvest’s job is to make the regional literature usable before you call them, and to keep its own numbers traceable after you do.