Start a Spring Cold Hardy Garden in Zone 3

Tips, Tricks

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With the uncharacteristically warm winter, and a warming trend on its way, despite the recent snow it may be time to plant cold hardy crops here in Zone 3. On the last segment of the Urban Garden Series I started the process of planting my summer loving crops like tomatoes and peppers indoors. Today I am going to talk about how I plan to grow my cold hardy crops under cover and some of the experiments I am going to do that should help me extend my season and increase my harvests by adapting these methods to my garden. My First Vlog! Check out the Gardening Biologist Next Door: https://youtu.be/qiUjMagmuVs Urban Gardening Series Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5mfR-r4BXH0wwN-9IQ--WX-C-4JqTR-7 How to Use a Cold Frame https://youtu.be/yPo1NPh0BeE Check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlbertaUrbanGarden/

Comments

Oh yeah, you have to be careful about cooking those crops... I remember last year I lost some plants because I was sick and slept in an hour and a half one morning. So I had the heat mat on under my plants, with the cover over them, and they were in the greenhouse on an unusually warm morning. It was 35°C in the greenhouse, I have no idea how hot it was for the plants, but I could smell them cooking when I took off the cover. Somehow a few of them still lived, but I lost a good amount. Needless to say, I'll drag my corpse out there from now on if I have to lol

Great information.
It is pretty cold here (imo) so I'll be paying close attention to how you garden.

If it snows on the sprouts of cold hardy plants, will it kill the sprouts?

I hope it works because it would benefit other people in the area. I wanted to tell you that constantly youtube or google keeps taking out my subs. This is the third time but I resubbed you again. Love your channel. It's so educational.

Hi Stephen, Interesting points, I need to finally read Coleman book. I'm planning to grow all those hardy one in August in UK they should be able to survive outside with fleece used occasionally when temperature drop below -3.

That will be interesting to follow Stephen, thanks for sharing my friend :-)

great information we in Trinidad has no snow or cold whether sunny always guy

Thanks for the video. Do you recommend weather equipment to monitor the local garden vs. using the local news forecasts?

You are thorough, Stephen. I guess you have to be if you want to have a successful garden in a limited space. I'm still rather unsuccessful, even on a big space so you are not missing anything. The effort just gets diluted the more space you have. Hahaha. Because i also have to keep the edges with shrubs from leaning in and devouring the garden again. Cornus is beautiful, they are just very time consuming and fast growing. Snip and chip, they are a constant source of easy to chip woodchips, so that is a plus. Willing to give it my best again this year. If all goes well, i will be building some cold frames as well. 1 or 2 small ones should be possible! My neighbor mentioned she had extra wood laying around she wanted to get rid of so that will come in handy. silent cheer. :) I'm having much more fun this year. The no dig beds make gardening so much easier. Now i have a bit of room to breathe and help my neighbor out with some things. She is getting old and is fast losing her grip on the garden. Sense of community is important in these times. We should be able to do it together.

Stephen, I planted carrot seeds in February with success. I am in zone 5b, but we still get many nights well below freezing. In Colorado we get wide swings in temperature. We do get a lot more sunlight in winter than Alberta.

I am zone 5 in New York, I have watched Patrick's videos as well and would love to do this but my only issue is my work hours are not always the same and I might have to go to work 4:30 am one day and 8:30 the next. I think I'll run into issues of not opening up the coverings when I should or get home after the temperatures have dropped enough to bother the plants. Work get in the way! :-)

This series and channel is great. My wife and secondarily I :) are gardening for the first time this year. We have been looking for a source of practical and easy to understand information... This is it!

PS. We have a toddler as well and would be interested in a video on how to involve young children in gardening.

May be you schould try and grow more native Plants they grow so quick were you are
I was in Alberta in 1975 /76 it was end of April there was about 2ft of snow two weeks later it was about 20 deg and everthing in the prerey was flowering try to talk with your native Indians they know what grows well and are very nice people

We had such a warm winter I have a thyme plant that has survived two winters now! and I live in zone 2/3

I love watching the different garden vlogs around the country. From you in Canada, Gary in Maryland, Blake in Texas, Calikim in California,John in Vegas, Ray in Iowa to Rick digging thru 8" + in Wisconsin, it's just amazing whats going on around us! Keep up the good work.

Yes the soil holds the heat better Stephen. Hope it works out for you.

Should work out nicely for you, Stephen!

I hope they do really well Stephen! I planted a load of things yesterday to get started. I love your camerawork by the way :)

I'm still very impressed to talk to a man living and gardening in Zone 3 while I'm living in a temperate area

Great experiment Stephen. no doubt you will have good results. Best wishes Bob.