Welcome to our monthly newsletter for the HOA board to share important information and announcements about our community, upcoming events, opportunities to get involved, helpful advice and tips, and updates on what the HOA board and committees are working on.

Announcements

IMPORTANT: The dates and times of upcoming Board meetings have been updated to accommodate budget planning. The meeting on October 13 will be a working meeting only, meaning there will be no voting that day. The 2022 budget will be reviewed and voted on November 8, and the Annual meeting will be December 6. Zoom invitations will be sent out by CCG for each of these meetings.

Upcoming Events

Please visit the homeowner portal calendar for the latest updates and details on upcoming events. If you have an event that you are organizing in our community, such as a park playdate, let us know, and we will add it to the calendar!

Halloween Parade and Chili Cook-Off

On October 30, the social committee is organizing a joint event: Halloween Parade and Chili Cook-Off. Please join us for one or both events! Here are the details:

• 4:00 pm - Gather at the park for the parade, and wear your amazing costumes!
• 4:30 pm - Parade
• 5:00 pm - Chili tasting/voting begins

Please bring your own chairs and beverages to the chili cook-off, and optionally a side dish or dessert to share. If you have an extra table at home, then please bring that as well to help with setting up food.

Do you want to submit your chili to the cook-off? Then please sign up here by October 29: Harvest Junction Chile Cook-Off Signup. Cook at home and bring your chili to the park for sharing and the tasting competition. The winner gets the “Chili winner” sign to hang in their window.

Getting Involved

Do you have experience with home improvement, landscaping, or construction and wish to help keep our community beautiful? We have one more open seat on the Architectural Review Committee (ARC), which plays a critical role for helping our community!

Committee members review home improvement requests from homeowners, provide feedback, and approve or deny to be consistent with our CC&R and architectural guidelines. They also recommend changes and improvements to our guidelines. If you’re interested in volunteering, then please show your community spirit by signing up!

Monthly Tips

How to Submit a Maintenance Request

If you find something that needs repair in a public or common area of Harvest Junction Village, please submit a maintenance request from the homeowner’s portal. This could include broken sprinkler heads, landscaping issues, water drainage issues, leaning street signs, or wasps in the park (just to name a few). To submit a maintenance request, please do the following:

1. Log into the homeowners portal.
2. Click “Maintenance” from the menu, then the “Request Maintenance” button.
3. Enter a detailed description and location of the issue, upload pictures if you have them, and click “Submit Request”.

Someone from CCG (our management company) will follow up with you directly, and you can track progress of your request from the homeowners portal.

This process is specifically for issues in public and common areas only, such as the park, public landscaping, streets, and sidewalks. For warranty repairs on your home or property, please contact your builder directly (Meritage or Richmond).

Winterizing your Lawn

If your lawn consists of cool-season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass, perennial rye, or fescue, then here are a few things to consider doing in the fall.

• Rake leaves, and pull weeds so they don’t compete for nutrients with the rest of your lawn.
• Fertilize with an organic “winterizing” fertilizer using a rotary (broadcast) or drop spreader. This helps feed the lawn during winter and prepares it for Spring. Be careful not to over-fertilize as that can burn the lawn, not to fertilize too close to winter as that can keep your lawn too lush and potentially cause winter kill, and avoid “fertilizing” your hardscaping as it can stain concrete.
• Aerate to help bring air, water, and nutrients to the roots and help the lawn survive winter. This can also help against thatch buildup (dead grass at the base of the grass blades).
• Seed bare spots or overseed (add grass seed to your existing lawn without turning the soil) as needed. Cold-season seeds germinate before the ground freezes, ideally when the temperature is between 60-70℉.
• Mow as you normally do until the lawn stops growing for winter. Consider allowing the lawn to grow a little longer for winter so it is better insulated (~4”).
• For flower and vegetable beds, insulate the topsoil by adding mulch.

For warm-season grasses such as Bermuda, St. Augustine, or zoysia, the steps are the same but timing is different: aerate in late Spring during peak growth; overseed in late Spring or early summer when these grasses germinate, and fertilize in early fall (before September) to encourage growth sufficiently prior to the first frost.

Winterizing your Irrigation System

It is critical to winterize your irrigation system prior to first frost. Failing to do so can result in significant damage from frozen water in the pipes. The following are some common winterizing steps, but the exact steps may vary from house to house. When in doubt, we recommend hiring a professional to winterize your system and ensure everything is done right.

• The first step is to shut off the water to your irrigation system. The master supply value to your irrigation system may be located in your basement.
• If you have ball valves on your backflow preventer, turn them to a 45-degree angle relative to the pipe to allow water in them to drain out.
• Set the irrigation controller to Off.
• Drain the water from your system. This is the most critical step of the winterization process. If your system uses the “blow-out draining” method, then we highly recommend hiring a professional to perform this work. Why? This step requires a special high-volume compressor that can supply at least 20-50 CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air to fully clear lines. Most DIY/home compressors aren’t capable of this. Also, the wrong PSI setting can damage irrigation lines.
• Finally, insulate any outdoor above-ground components, such as the main shut-off valve (if not in the basement), exposed pipes, and backflow preventers; however, be careful not to block air vents in the backflow preventer or drain outlets!
• Don’t forget to disconnect your hose from the bibs before a freeze! Valves for outside bibs are located well inside your house walls, so nothing else is needed to protect the bibs.

Again when in doubt, be safe and hire a professional. You can also reach out to your builder for specific instructions for your home.

Tree Care and Preparation for Winter

• Make sure all your trees have a ring of mulch 3 inches deep around their trunk extending at least 12 inches out but do not allow the mulch to get closer than 3” to the trunk. Mulch closer than 3” to the trunk can cause rot and injure or kill a tree.
• Wrap your trees with paper tree wrap, which can be purchased from any landscaping store. Wrap the trunk from the base up to the first branch. This protects the trunk from splitting due to extreme cold and snow.
• If you don’t already, consider installing a drip line for any trees irrigated by only sprinklers. Your tree will develop strong roots and not pull moisture from your lawn.
• Trees need water in the winter too! During dry spells, water your trees at least once a month. If the soil is dry 2 inches deep, your tree needs some slow water! Tip - hook up your hose and open it to a small stream for about 15-20 minutes per tree. Don’t forget to disconnect your hose again!
• Snow is less water than you think; 1 inch of snow is only about ¼ inch of liquid water. Even if it snows, your trees might need water!

Are Your Trees Dying?

If you have had a tree die this summer, especially in the new houses, you may be wondering what you can do. Unfortunately, many of the species of trees being put in are hardier in Longmont’s desert climate. If you want to replace your dead tree with something more hardy, please feel free to contact the landscape committee at hjv-landscape@googlegroups.com, and we can help you select something more robust. For example, this homeowner removed their dying elm that was provided by the builder and replaced it with a serviceberry.

What is the Board Working On?

Values

One of the Board’s first activities was to identify our core values. These aren’t strict rules but rather are core beliefs and guiding principles to influence everything we do. Below are the nine values that we identified and aspire to apply in our work.

Landscape Update

On September 29, the Board gave Metco 30 days’ notice of cancellation of the Landscape Maintenance and Snow Removal contract and is conducting a formal RFP (request for proposals) to hire their replacement.

In the meantime, the Board hired BoCo Stump and Snow to repair several of the current issues with our irrigation system, including a continuous water leak, failed irrigation pump, and broken sprinkler heads. The difference in service has been tremendous – BoCo hit the ground running within one (1) day of the request being made, performed a full test of our system, and quickly made the necessary repairs. The Board wishes to give a special Thank You to Amber at CCG for helping us find and hire Boco!

To prepare for 2022, the Board is investigating fertilizing several lawn areas before the first frost, then overseeding and upgrading our irrigation system in Spring for better watering and active protection against future water leaks. The Board is also working with Resource Central to review our irrigation systems and recommend improvements.

The Board is preparing to blow out and winterize our irrigation system. The previous winterization is suspected to have damaged parts of our system; therefore, the Board is taking particular care in selecting a qualified vendor to perform this work correctly.

On September 20, we had a meeting with Deryn Davidson from the CSU Extension Office to discuss the many dead trees in our community. She gave us excellent feedback about the causes for the many deaths, what trees we can save, and which ones will likely need to be replaced. Armed with this information, the HOA can better prepare sites for tree replacement so that future trees will thrive. The next step is to do a full tree health inventory of our community. Once we know the health of every tree in our community, we will develop a plan of removal and replacement over the coming years and determine the budget for this. We are exploring the option of hiring a dedicated arborist to help the HOA with this process. The HOA is exploring several grants to help mitigate the cost of the tree removal and replacement project.

NGLA “Core Group”

Harvest Junction Village is joining Longmont’s Neighborhood Group Leaders Association. NGLA gives us access to monthly meetings and regular updates from city departments about current topics and issues affecting neighborhoods including, police, planning, public works, and natural resources, the school district, LDDA, and others. It also opens up public grants for landscaping improvements, social events, and community safety.

The first step of joining is to create a “Core Group” of homeowners to actively represent our community within NGLA. Our Core Group consists of volunteers from the HOA Board and from each of our committees: ARC, Landscape, Safety, and Social.

Joining NGLA is an important step for our improvement plans in 2022. Special thanks go out to everyone that volunteered to be part of our NGLA Core Team! (We will share the official list of members later this year once our application has been accepted.)

Landscape Committee

The landscape committee met on September 7 to discuss current landscape needs. Items discussed included education events and information the committee can generate to help homeowners. Tree removal, possible transitions in select locations around the community to xeriscaped landscapes, and irrigation were also discussed.

The landscape committee met for another Fall Cleanup on September 18. Thank you to all who helped out! The committee meets again on October 5 to discuss upcoming projects, the organization of the committee, and the committee charter.

Safety Committee

The safety committee met with Kay Armstrong from Longmont Public Safety to make plans on launching our neighborhood watch program. They also started the process for joining NGLA and forming our “Core Group” to represent our community with Longmont city. Plans are being finalized on neighborhood watch, and invitations to attend the kickoff presentation will be sent later this year via a separate email.

Social Committee

The social committee planned several events for 2021:

1. The Community Garage Sale on August 28 had 21 households participating.The HOA created signs, put them out, and advertised the sale online. We also created a map of households and their items to sell. We had lots of buyers visit our neighborhood. It was a great success!
2. The End of Summer BBQ is on September 19. The HOA provided brats and hotdogs, and homeowners brought a dish to share. Thanks to everyone who participated!
3. On October 30, 4-6 pm we will have our Halloween parade and Chili cook-off events! Details are above.
4. In December we will have a holiday lights competition. See the November newsletter for details about participating!
5. On December 21, the Social Committee will be organizing a Winter Solstice Lantern Walk. See the November newsletter for details!