If you live in a climate where frost or cold weather are usual, you probably have a small growing season. However, there are certain things you can do to extend the growing season by weeks, months or even all the time.
1. Choose the right plants
The plants are most important, so make sure you choose ones that will yield in the amount of time you have. You can grow most annual vegetables in most places if you start them early, and if you choose a perennial that doesn’t belong in your zone, it may not produce anything even if it does survive the winters. Learn your plants needs for soil, water, light, temperature etc.
2. Use green houses
The best known way to extend the growing season is if you use greenhouses. Here‘s an article to teach you how to easily create a greenhouse.
3. Use cold frames
Cold frames can be an invaluable way to extend your season using salvaged materials such as old patio doors and scrap wood. You can build them into slopes or berms, but it also can be as simple as throwing a frame on a window and placing it over a bed at a height suitable to your plants. It is also possible to create temporary quick and dirty cold frames simply by piling logs or other materials around your beds and placing windows on top of them.
4. Use microclimates
Microclimates will make conditions more favorable if you want to grow less hardy plants. They are areas within your garden that have different temperature or humidity qualities than the rest of your garden. For example, south-facing walls, as mentioned above, as are southern hills, large rocks, pond or lake edges, or well-sheltered areas (e.g. from buildings, trees or hedges).
5. Stagger plantings
It is important to always continue to plant appropriate crops throughout the entire season, including right in fall when you can plant cold season crops like spinach, chard, kale, or beets. After you harvest a crop, plant another crop right away, considering how much time you have before first frost.
6. Plant diversity, including perennials
Perennial vegetables like sea kale, good King Henry, garden sorrel, and many others are often poking out of the ground weeks before you plant your first annual out. You also can benefit from the abundance and ease of maintenance that trees, shrubs, and vines can bring, so you don’t always have to stick to veggies and herbs. Try fruit like strawberries, juneberries/Saskatoon berries, raspberries, kiwi, and haskaps, as well as nuts like hazelnuts, pecans, almonds and cherries.
7. Incorporate mounds and raised beds
Although raised beds and soil mounds may have some drawbacks, such as drying out faster and requiring more work to create, if you include at least a few raised beds or hills/mounds you will be able to extend your season at least a little.
8. Build rich soil
The richer your soil is with nutrients the faster your plants will grow, which means they are more likely to yield faster and better before the first frost.
9. Mulch heavily
Mulch is extremely important for the soil, as 4-6 inches of mulch will insulate your soil and plant roots, and will moderate soil temperature extremes as well. Adding even more mulch at a time (even more than a foot deep) for the winter may even allow you to plant things that normally wouldn’t survive the winter in some places.
10. Start seedlings and plant early
Some vegetables like tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are best if planted a month or so earlier. Some plants don’t transplant well, such as most squashes, but everything else is game for starting seedlings early. Get to know your region’s expected frost dates, watch the weather carefully, and plant as early as you can.
11. Protect plants
Collect any coverings like old blankets, sheets, plastic, tarps etc., and be prepared to drape them over your more sensitive plants. To avoid damage to your plants from the weight of the material, put stakes in the ground around your plants that reach beyond the top of the plants, lay them with coverings and attach some stones or something heavy to ensure they are protected at night.