Ways to Extend Growing Season?

[DuskrayTroubador]

Hey all,

I've been thinking of ways to extend one's growing season. So far the best ways I can think of (other than building a greenhouse) are:

Putting clear plastic cups over seedlings to give them a little bit more warmth, allowing you to start about 2 weeks earlier than you normally would, barring extreme weather conditions.

Planting in mounds as opposed to flat beds/holes or square raised beds. The thinking is that with mounds you get increased surface area exposed to the sun. More sunlight hitting the mound all day will heat the mound more than the rest of the ground and keep the roots warmer, thus extending your growing season later on in the year (but maybe only by a week, maybe two? I haven't tried this yet).

Mulching to retain heat for the roots in Autumn.

Any other ideas out there?

 

[coldcanna]

In the spring where I am our planting date is always June 1 but the weather is usually nice during most days starting in early May or late April. I always root clones/ start seeds in March so they are 18" tall by early May. I move the pots outside during the day at this point and kind of ease them into outside life by bringing them back in when the nights are cold. That gives me an extra 4 weeks of outside veg. Something I did for the first time this year was to take an old grow tent I had sitting around and just wrap it with cheap poly, it worked out nicely and was a good way to use some old gear that was just collecting dust.

As far as the end of the season there isnt much you can do other then build a greenhouse. Keep up with your anti fungal sprays to push off bud rot is about it. Do you not have the space for a GH or just not the money? There are affordable ways of going about it without buying an actual GH. Google is your friend

 

[DuskrayTroubador]

In the spring where I am our planting date is always June 1 but the weather is usually nice during most days starting in early May or late April. I always root clones/ start seeds in March so they are 18" tall by early May. I move the pots outside during the day at this point and kind of ease them into outside life by bringing them back in when the nights are cold. That gives me an extra 4 weeks of outside veg. Something I did for the first time this year was to take an old grow tent I had sitting around and just wrap it with cheap poly, it worked out nicely and was a good way to use some old gear that was just collecting dust.

As far as the end of the season there isnt much you can do other then build a greenhouse. Keep up with your anti fungal sprays to push off bud rot is about it. Do you not have the space for a GH or just not the money? There are affordable ways of going about it without buying an actual GH. Google is your friend

My issue is more along the lines of discretion. Space as well - I plan on renting a property for next season and don't know how much the landlords would appreciate finding the remains of a greenhouse, even if the footprint is only dead grass at the end.

As far as at the end of the season, I still think that keeping the root mass at an elevated temperature will help keep the plants alive and progressing for a bit longer. Regarding the rain, things get trickier. My only idea to help combat the Autumn rains (aside from keeping up on your anti-fungal sprays) is to plant on slopes, and not linearly. You'll get more airflow on a slope than you will a flat area , plus more of the rainwater will run-off down the hillside as opposed to drenching the roots and washing away calcium, putting the plants further at risk to fungi.

Theoretically, it seems that the ideal method of planting would be in mounds on a hillside. Now, in order to keep the shape of the mounds intact, you'd probably require a living mulch to hold things together. Also, on a steeper slope, some trickier engineering of the mounds might be required to shape them into the contour of the hillside, having effectively a half-ish mound coming out of the hill (although I think using sticks/stones around the base would help as well).

That would theoretically be the best geographical setup to extend the season, both in terms of maintaining heat against cooler temps and helping to defend against fungi.

But there have to be more ways out there aside from the above and greenhouses.

 

[theJointedOne]

Hard to beat mother nature without a greenhouse.

Short season varieties ftw!

 

[redlaser]

The mulching will help with getting too cold or too hot but it won't actually provide heat. Maybe it would give a couple days of a buffer while the days got colder. I use frost cloths for other crops that give 8-10 degree extra protection and I would estimate mulch might be in the 8-20 degree range for a temp buffer.