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What is spring so far am I right….
If you live in the Midwest of the United States like I do you most likely have had your fill of the this intense spring weather we have been experiencing. This weather which includes snow just a few days ago for me has been a huge cramp in my planting schedule for this spring. Normally by this time of year I have my entire garden planted and I have moved onto mowing grass and keeping up on other projects that always take up my spring. At this point I only have my onion, beets and spinach in the ground which is okay I guess since they can take all the cold crappy weather we have been having. But this late start got me thinking I have just essentially been robbed of about 20 days of my growing season and it left me with all sorts of questions like…. How is that going to affect my season? Will I be able to grow the long season crops that I want to? What should I grow to take advantage of what time I have left? Do I need to consider season extension this fall? Yes lots of questions…. Short Season Crops A spring like this calls for the planting of cool season and short season crops. These types of crops typically take 50-90 days to grow and produce a crop and some will keep producing as long as you keep harvesting. Plants to consider would include
Double Cropping/AKA Companion Planting When you are dealing with a shorter planting season one thing to think about is double cropping or companion planting. There are alot of crops out there that you can grow in the same space at the same time which or course means you can grow more in the same space. An example of this is the three sisters planting system attributed to the Native Americans in the USA. They would plant corn, climbing beans and squash in the same area and all three species complement each other and can be grown in the same space without interfering with each other. Season Extension Finally the big kahuna thing you can do to make up for this short season is the plan some sort of season extension device for the end on the season to try and get back some of this days in the fall. Season extension comes is three evermore expensive flavors for the home gardener. Low tunnels Low tunnels are basically little mini greenhouses created by installing metal or plastic hoops over the garden bed and then covering them with plastic. In the fall they work best for low growing and confined crops, think salads and root vegetables. Most everything else is too big or spread out by this time of the growing year to work. They are great season extenders for pretty much everything in the spring since everything is small that time of year. High Tunnels Like I am sure you guessed from the the name high tunnels are like low tunnels except they are much bigger. These are made in much the same way as low tunnels with larger stronger hoops and more supports. These can be used almost like actually greenhouse but they are not a durable or as easy to control temperature. The advantage of these over low tunnels is that they can contain pretty much every crop you can grow and with a larger area protected they are less prone to large temperature swings. Greenhouses Finally you have greenhouses which come in lot of different varieties and purposes. The upside to these is you can really control the temperature in these much better than when compared to the the tunnel structures. This downside to them however is that they are relatively permanent structures and they will be in that spot for a long time. You can work around this depending on your situation but for most part you are stuck with wherever you build it. The moral of the story With that good luck on your gardening endeavours and I hope the summer turns out to be better than this spring has been. For more information like this check out other articles here on the Green Living LIbrary
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