Late winter and early spring are some of my favorite times. The air is crisp and fresh like no other time and you can almost feel life being breathed back into the earth and sky. As the days get noticeably longer and the warmth of the sun can again be felt on your skin again, around our house it’s time to tap maple trees and boil syrup, await the piercing chirps of the spring peepers, and prepare the “cheater” garden.
What’s a cheater garden, you might ask? Well, it’s my word for using season extension methods to plant out cold tolerant spring crops up to a month before they would be safe to plant without the use of such tactics. Using season extension gives gardeners a whole “cheater” season on either the front or back (or both) of the growing season.
Season extension can be easy, but it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. It takes planning and discipline, and it all starts with nursing a few of your favorite spring crops into little seedlings that will take to transplanting out in the cold. It’s easy and rewarding, and cool season leafy greens are some of my favorite garden veggies! But it needs to be done carefully and deliberately or else you’ll set back your plants for weeks, or at worst, have whole flats of frozen plants. Follow along to learn more about the methods, structures, and tactics that make for successful season extension.
Put simply, season extension is the use of some sort of low cost covering or structure to cover your plants during times when temperatures are too cold for vigorous growth. This can be as simple as a plastic sheet draped over them, all the way to a full greenhouse. If you’re intentionally planting a spring or fall garden, the use of season extension gives you about 6 weeks of extra growing time. In my location in the Midwest, I can plant cold hardy seedlings out as early as late March. That means by May 1 – a full two weeks away from my average last frost date – I’ll already be harvesting some spinach, lettuce, collard greens, and other varieties! Without the use of a season extending cover or structure, I wouldn’t be able to plant outside until the middle to end of April. That means I can get nearly one extra full rotation in by the time my warm weather crops even need to go in the ground, maximizing my space and making the most out of my small garden.
You can then apply this to the warm season crops too, and move them outside a few weeks early under the protection of your season extender. This is a little more risky – because warm season crops are very susceptible to cold you have to watch for freezes – but can work effectively for getting a jump on these crops too.
How Does Season Extension Work?
During the cool temperatures of late winter and early spring, the ground is frigid. While some plants can tolerate cold, and their seeds will even germinate as low as 45F, they just won’t grow very fast at those temperatures, and not at all below them. Season extension acts just like a greenhouse, even if it’s just a sheet draped over the soil. The sun still shines in March, and begins to grow ever more intense as spring draws near. That heat energy is trapped under the sheet or structure, and warms the soil. Sometimes, this warming is quite dramatic. I’ve had days of outdoor temperatures in the 20s while the ground in my low tunnels is over 60. Those are perfect soil temperatures for the roots of cold tolerant plants. In fact, I’d bet the best leafy greens you’ll ever have are those grown using season extension techniques.