10 Ways to Extend Your Growing Season

When I first started gardening, I used to get kind of bummed out at the prospect of the end of the gardening season.  As I learned how to not kill {as many} plants, and my proficiency {using that word loosely} increased, I started dabbling in extending the gardening season.  These days, with my greenhouse, I pretty much have something growing all year round.  You don’t have to have a greenhouse to extend your season, though.

Here’s 10 ways to add a little more garden to your year:

1. Build a hoop house.  These are essentially CHEAP ways to build a quick greenhouse.  They are very effective at keeping the frost off of plants, and really do work at keeping the soil warmer.  Add them to either end of the growing season.
2. Grow cold weather friendly crops.  Cabbage, Kale, Mache, Winter Lettuce {when covered with a cloche or hoop house}, and spinach are pretty dang forgiving in the late fall to early winter months.  In fact, a couple of them actually taste sweeter after a light frost.
3. If you decide to build a hoop house, plan on overwintering your cooler spring season crops.  Plant them in the late fall/early winter and cover the hoop house.  As soon as the soil is warm enough, nature will take over and voila, super early spring garden. {Crop examples:  spinach, arugula, lettuce, kale, carrots, onions, peas, beets, parsnips, etc.}
4. If you aren’t into starting a crop of lettuce for the fall indoors, you can try placing shade cloth on the soil in late summer/early fall to cool down the soil so your crop can germinate outdoors.
5. Pick frequently.  Sometimes people cut their season short by not picking frequently enough.  Picking signals to the plant that it needs to keep producing.
6. Weed religiously.  Weeds take valuable nutrients from the soil, giving you shorter yields.  It’s a pain in the butt, but you have to do it regularly.
7. Succession plant.  Grow the same crops over and over by spacing them about 2 weeks apart.  It means you won’t just have beans for a couple of weeks, but rather all summer long.
8. Baby your soil.  Soil problems and deficiencies can cut a growing season short.  If you plant to grow into the fall and start early in the spring, crop rotation and compost will benefit your soil big time.
9. Garden in raised beds.  Raised beds keep the soil warmer for longer.  They also prevent against walking on and compacting the delicate natural balances of organisms in the soil.  Good, warm soil will extend how long you can get things to grow.  Plain and simple.
10. Use floating row covers and pay attention to frost warnings.  Even if you decide not to use a hoop house, you can protect against one measly little frost by covering your plants when a frost is imminent.  You can buy row covers, but honestly, an old sheet will do the trick.

I know I have some readers that are master gardeners, so how do YOU extend your growing season?

~Mavis