The gardening season often feels too short. Maybe you want to spend more time picking hot tomatoes from vines, picking bouquets or cutting fragrant herbs into salads and roasted vegetables. Solution? Short season horticultural crops. If you live in the north or at a higher altitude, it may be necessary to wait until Memorial Day (or longer) to make the soil warm enough to grow hot tomatoes, melons, pumpkins, etc. If the cold current hits in the middle of September, plants will not have much time to sprout, shed leaves, blossom and produce vegetables or fruits, which will take at least 120 days. In this article, Savana will introduce the reliable and fast growers of vegetables, herbs and flowers, as well as the favorite techniques for accelerating the growth of slow or tender gardens.
Short Season Vegetable Gardening
You may consider the air temperature before planting, but soil moisture and temperature are equally important. Before sowing or seeding, make sure that the soil is not soaked by melted snow or feels cold. Gardens with raised beds help the soil drain quickly and accelerate warming. It starts from the cold resistant vegetables in the harvest season.
Plant Cold Resistant Vegetables
Lettuce, radish, beets and spinach can all be grown after the snow melts and before the last frost. With these early spring vegetables, you can harvest colorful salad in one month. The lively sweet peas can also withstand cool temperatures and are ready in 60 to 70 days. If you are impatient with agricultural products in spring, you can plant asparagus and rhubarb: these two plants are perennial plants, which can survive after dormancy in winter, and are ready to enjoy them in the middle and late spring.
Other short season crops that can withstand cold weather include Brassica vegetables: broccoli, kale and cabbage. You can plant them in the spring before the last frost, but they usually yield more as autumn crops. Plant them in midsummer for autumn harvest.
If you like carrots, beets and parsnips, autumn frost can be your friend. The first cold can make the root vegetables still in the ground sweet. From the first autumn frost, find out the best time to plant these vegetables.
Plant Potatoes
Potatoes can be dug out of the soil 80 to 100 days after planting tubers (sometimes called seed potatoes). The eyes of these small potatoes will germinate when they are buried in the soil, and new potatoes will grow under the soil. They can be harvested early or matured in a week or two.
You can plant red, purple, white and gold potatoes, as well as sweet potatoes that can be made into delicious dishes and side dishes or used for pies and desserts.
Give Veggies a Kick-Start
When the soil is warm enough and all frost hazards are over, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons can start with seeds. You can plant them in small mounds that can warm up quickly in the sun. These vegetables usually grow fast enough to be harvested before the autumn frost threatens.
Tomatoes and peppers require longer growing seasons and additional planning to harvest crops before the weather becomes too cold. Six to eight weeks before outdoor seeding, seed indoors (or in a greenhouse). You can also purchase garden plants that will arrive when the weather is warm enough to be transplanted to your area.
When purchasing seeds or plants, look for varieties with short harvest or mature days. For example, "July 4 hybrid" tomato seedlings can mature in 49 days after transplanting to the outdoor garden.
Frost Plant
Another technique to speed up or protect the harvest of these more vulnerable vegetables is to use protective plastic around tomato cages or over plants with hoop brackets to help them avoid accidents and early autumn frost. You can spread a layer of shading cloth on the tomato plant on a cool autumn night to keep the plant warm and extend the harvest period. Mulching also helps regulate soil temperature.
Short Season Herb Gardening
Vanilla is a natural addition to any short season horticultural crop. Because you usually only harvest leaves, most of them can be cut, chopped or dried within five weeks to two months.
Choose Perennial Herbs
If you want the hardest herbs to grow, look for perennial herbs in your area. The chives, thyme, mint and clover return year after year. Mint may need some containment to prevent it from spreading to unwanted areas. Angelica pubescens is unknown, but it added a delicious celery flavor to the food long before the celery was ready in the garden.
Perennial sage, tarragon, thyme and oregano can also survive in winter and thrive in a short growing season. Just make sure their soil is well drained - even hard -. Under appropriate conditions, many people are considered difficult to enter Zone 4.
Rosemary and bay are two common perennial herbs in warm climate. They also grow well in containers and can be taken indoors in winter to be planted as indoor plants. You need to adapt them to the outdoor environment in spring, just like you strengthen the graft.
Give Annual Herbs a Head Start
If you want the hardest herbs to grow, look for perennial herbs in your area. The chives, thyme, mint and clover return year after year. Mint may need some containment to prevent it from spreading to unwanted areas. Angelica pubescens is unknown, but it added a delicious celery flavor to the food long before the celery was ready in the garden.
Perennial sage, tarragon, thyme and oregano can also survive in winter and thrive in a short growing season. Just make sure their soil is well drained - even hard -. Under appropriate conditions, many people are considered difficult to enter Zone 4.
Rosemary and bay are two common perennial herbs in warm climate. They also grow well in containers and can be taken indoors in winter to be planted as indoor plants. You need to adapt them to the outdoor environment in spring, just like you strengthen the graft.
Short Season Flower Gardening
When it comes to flowers, the best choice for short season horticultural crops is to choose more cold resistant varieties, such as perennial plants or local plants that can tolerate some cold and frost. This will help you extend the colorful season as long as possible, no matter how short your season is.
Look for hardy perennial plants
One of the reasons why people like bulbous plants that bloom in spring is that they are the first flowers of the season and can usually cope with scattered snow and frost. Thanks to the bulbs that are stored and provided with nutrition, they will also blossom into vigorous and luxuriant petals.
The plantingof snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils adds color to the early spring, followed by the waves of tulips, the bright carpet of creeping phlox and decorative fireworks of Allium.
When the bulbs die, columbines and anemones - perennial plants closely related to local woodland flowers - can hide dying bulb leaves. Cold resistant violas and pansies can also blossom as early flowers, and may be perennial plants in some parts of the country.
Beard or Siberian iris, perennial poppy and peony can also occupy the central stage in late spring or early summer with kaleidoscope like dazzling colors. Other reliable short season options include local wildflowers and varieties evolved from them, such as golden pheasant, echinacea (also known as golden chrysanthemum), mint (also known as bee fragrance), lupin and penstemon. To extend your flowering season, look for perennial asters, sedum plants, chrysanthemums, and decorative grasses that can survive a frost or two.
Maximize Annual Flowers
Many famous annual plants, such as morning glory, marigold, zinnia, cosmos, impatiens and perilla, are tender plants that will wither after the first frost. To enjoy them as long as possible, plant them indoors six to eight weeks before the last frost, or buy seedlings close to flowering.
With a good start, annuals should provide nearly three months of flowering time to light up your garden and fill the room with vases. Some annual plants, such as annual fragrant snowballs, snapdragon and carnation, can tolerate some frost, which also allows you to extend the short growing season for several weeks.
If you have annual plants that can seed themselves - plants whose seeds can survive in winter and germinate in the spring next year - you can open flowers in the following seasons. Pay attention to sprouting when the weather is warm. If new seeds cannot grow by themselves, you can plant them, or plant seedlings to speed up flowering.
