This time of the season can be frustrating for gardeners in USDA Zone 6a and lower. We all just want to be outside in the garden. Weather doesn’t cooperate. After a week or so of pleasant temperatures and emerging spring flowers, this past Monday we wake up to something like this.
If you’re having a hard time reading the rain gauge, let me help. It’s between 1/2″ Disappointed and 3/4″ Quite Disappointed. This has happened most years so far on the Lot, but we continue to start seeds for cold crops around the end of March and beginning of April when there is still a good chance of a frost.
Extending the Growing Season
Depending on location, there are an estimated number of frost free days a gardener has to work with to grow crops. If we stuck to only frost free dates, our growing season isn’t long enough to grow some of the veggies we like to nom nom. Even though cool crops like greens and radishes have a certain amount of frost tolerance, we still use a few gardening techniques to get a jump on the growing season in the Spring. The same practices can also extend the season later into the Fall.
Hoop Houses for Raised Beds
These are the two little hoop houses I constructed in the Spring of 2019. Metal brackets, PVC pipe, and heavy mil plastic gave me a very basic shelter to protect seedlings against frost. If I see evening temperatures will dip below freezing, I can pull the plastic over the frames and secure it with landscaping bricks and clamps. The following morning as temps warm again, I pull back the plastic to make sure the little seedlings don’t get toasted from the heat building up inside the covered hoops.
Pop-Up Greenhouse
One of this season’s experiments is the purchase of a temporary greenhouse. The Lot is on the smaller scale of garden plots, so a permanent greenhouse isn’t in the cards for the Other Half and I. Another option was a cold frame, but most we had seen were heavy and awkward to move. Here’s the greenhouse we picked out.
Our Spring season is often wet and can be quite cold. Some seeds require a minimum temperature to germinate, so if dropped into the ground now they may end up rotting. With this little greenhouse, I’m hoping to start some flower seeds earlier than I could plant the seeds directly into the garden. This is all an experiment; I have no idea how it will pan out.
The only problem so far as I mentioned in an earlier post, is the entire setup was knocked over by heavy winds. These are the trays all nicely planted the first time. I used landscape fabric staples to secure the left and right sides of the frame to the ground, but it didn’t hold. I think the solution is to use rope and tent stakes to secure all fours sides of the bottom of the structure to the ground.
How to Creep
There are other methods of extending your growing season. The above are what we are using on the Lot. Michigan State University Extension has a nice overview article to get you started.