Maintaining a healthy garden is rewarding in its way. However, as the cold and short days set in, your plants begin to shrivel up and die. This issue is frustrating.
Luckily, several effective strategies can prolong their life span and lengthen your planting season.
If, like most of us, you are tired of watching your garden fade into the fall, then read on to discover some crucial expert techniques.
1. Use Cold Frames
One of the most effective ways of extending the growing season of fresh produce, such as tomatoes, is cold frames.
These simple constructs are designed to provide a sheltered microclimate for your plant, which will protect it from hostile outdoor elements.
In essence, cold frames are small and confined above-ground beds designed in wood or a solid frame with a transparent material, like glass or polycarbonate.
It is mainly a structure that traps the heat from the sun when it is in action. It warms the soil and the plants in the frame, all the while keeping them above the cold outside air temperature.
At night, this frame turns into insulation, holding that warmth down and protecting your plants from frost damage.
Using them, you can extend your gardening season into a far earlier spring and much later in the fall. They are great for growing cool-weather vegetables, such as lettuce, spinach, and kale.
Orient them so the taller side faces south, catching as much sun as possible to maximise effectiveness. Insulate the sides and bottom of the frame to retain more heat.
In addition, vent the frame during sunny days to avoid overheating and allow aeration. Check the moisture of the soil continuously, since the microclimate tends to cause dryness, and water your plants accordingly.
With just a little planning and maintenance, cold frames can ensure a full harvest for weeks, or even months, longer than you might have had otherwise.
2. Build a Greenhouse
Another great option to extend your growing season is constructing a conservatory.
While cold frames are considered small, a greenhouse is larger and completely enclosed, giving plants protection throughout the year.
They come in all shapes and sizes, from small hobby-scale greenhouses to large commercial ones.
Regardless of size, the idea remains constant. The greenhouse traps the sun’s heat, thereby maintaining a small microclimate way warmer and more stable than outdoors.
By keeping your plants in a greenhouse, you’ll get to start your garden earlier in spring. Moreover, you can grow cold-sensitive crops, such as tomatoes and peppers, well into the fall and even winter months.
Greenhouses also protect plants from pests, episodes of extreme weather conditions, and other nature-related factors that threaten your garden.
Building one isn’t at all difficult. However, there are some aspects to take into consideration:
- Location. Choose one with sufficient sunlight.
- Size. Think of the available space, and what you need for a greenhouse.
- Material. It must be strong and fully transparent, like glass, polycarbonate, or plastic sheets.
- Heating and Ventilation. Include helping features, such as vents, fans, and heaters, to control temperature and airflow.
- Irrigation. You will need a close water source and an efficient irrigation method.
If you can’t decide between all these variables, consult a professional gardener.
3. Add Row Covers
Another efficient approach to stretching your growing season involves the use of row covers. These are lightweight, permeable fabrics or materials laid directly over your plants for protection against natural elements.
Since they trap heat and insulate plants, they can save your garden from frost damage. Thus, they allow you to start your garden early during spring or extend it late into fall.
By creating a microclimate for your plants, a row cover can extend the period you have to grow cool-weather crops, like lettuce, spinach, and brassicas.
In addition, many common garden pests will not reach your plant because the physical barrier of the row covers prevents insects, birds, and small animals from any access.
There are 3 types of row covers:
- Floating. These lightweight spun-bonded fabrics provide sunlight, air, and water passage, all while maintaining a physical barrier.
- Plastic. Clear or translucent plastic sheets cover the ground over rows of crops to trap more heat, though it requires some ventilation.
- Low tunnels. They are miniature hoop houses or arched structures, covered with row cover material.
When you employ row covers, make sure the edges of the cover are well grounded to maintain the insulating effect.
In addition, you need to ventilate during extra sunny days to avoid damage from overheating.
4. Add Dark or Light Mulch According to Season
Applying this protective cover to your plants is a great way to protect your plants from fluctuating environmental conditions.
Mulch is a coating layer that consists of wood chips, leaves, or straws. It’s spread over your soil to protect the plants. Different types impact the temperature and moisture, so choose according to your plants’ needs.
In early spring and late fall, you should use dark mulch. At that time, the soil is still cold. Adding some dark-coloured mulch on the soil, such as compost or shredded bark, allows for more heat absorption and a warmer soil.
In addition, it retains the soil’s heat, thus helping to prolong the growing season.
In the summer, use light-coloured straw or leaves. They tend to reflect more light and keep the soil cooler to avoid overheating. This allows your plants to remain healthy as the temperature gets higher.
Generally, mulch is applied in 2- to 4-inch layers around the base of plants. You should leave a few inches between the mulches and stems.
5. Plant in Succession
This is one of the most underrated methods for extending your growing season.
Succession planting means sowing seeds in successive rows or at intervals of 2 to 3 weeks. That lengthens your growing season as some of the seeds are planted or transplanted into seedlings at different times. This means you will sow different harvests over a longer period.
Start your season with cool-season crops including, but not limited to, lettuce, spinach, and radishes. As you combine an early spring planting with a late one, use a quick maturing crop for the first round.
This will provide you with a small, steady supply of these vegetables from early to late spring.
For warm-season crops, like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, try varieties with different maturity days. Go ahead and sow or transplant the first round of plants, and then do other plantings after 4-6 weeks.
In late summer, sow or transplant cool-weather crops, such as kale, chard, and Brussels sprouts.
By adopting a succession planting strategy, you will be able to maximise your garden’s productivity and get an excellent yield for several weeks or even months longer than single planting.
6. Choose Late Season and Cold Hardy Plants
You can extend your growing season by planting crops that adapt well to late-season and cold-hardy conditions.
Remember, your plants’ types determine the length of your harvest. Choosing those that can survive late seasons and hard conditions is an important factor in extending the yielding time.
If you are planting vegetables, kale, spinach, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts, they are bred to mature later on in the year. Thus, they take a little longer to harvest.
They are often planted in late summer or early fall and continue well into early winter months.
Hardy greens, root vegetables, and herbs will tolerate cold weather. Arugula, swiss chard, carrots, beets, and parsley will all grow quite well into the fall and even into winter.
This is especially true if you make use of row covers or greenhouses.
By nature, perennials produce year after year. You can add asparagus, rhubarb, thyme, rosemary, or mint in your garden. This will lengthen your season because most of them keep on producing long past the first frost in fall.
By doing this, you will be able to continue reaping several months beyond what you would have with a more typical selection of warm-weather crops.
Conclusion About Extending Growing Season
We all dream of having a blooming garden all year long. Although weather will always impact our green spaces, we definitely can help extend the growing season.
Using one of these strategies or combining a few of them will allow your planting season to live long unto the winter. Happy harvesting!
