Preparing the garden for winter is important for the garden soil and the perennial plants. We are in Zone 3 meaning winter temperature can drop to -40 degrees. In our particular area, this does not happen very often, but it might happen after a warm spell, where most of the snow melts. Protecting ...
Winter Growing
Planting a Fall Garden in a Northern Climate
Our growing season is short, just over 100 days. It seems that with most plants we have just one shot. However, to use succession planting for a fall garden has been a goal of ours for many years. We started experimenting with it pushing the boundaries for planting a second crop, aka a fall garden ...
Why we heat the indoor garden with electricity
Every so often the question comes up on how we heat our indoor garden/greenhouse or why we heat the indoor garden with electricity. For those that don't know we are in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada. It is cold here. We use our indoor growing room year-round. In the ...
What to Grow in an Indoor Edible Window Garden
If you have followed us for a while you will know that we grow an indoor window garden in the back of our garage that we converted into a food production place. Over the years we have grown a lot of plants indoors at a window: Microgreens, herbs, Aloe Vera, strawberries, lettuce, winter ...
Plant Protection From Frost
Freezing temperature is something we constantly deal with in a northern garden. There can always be another frost after the "last day of frost" and before the "first day of frost". Plant protection from frost is crucial for growing a successful garden in cold climate. In this post, we will talk ...
Blizzard Conditions In The Garden
Living in Alberta Canada, blizzard conditions in the garden are a common threat. We have experienced it in spring as well as in fall. There is the possibility of snow in every month of the year. Our first spring here in 2008 we had beautiful weather in mid of April . We were excited to finally ...
How Different Plants Survive Frost
Freezing weather kill plants in the garden, right? Well, it depends. Plants hold up very differently to frost. In this post, we share a picture and video comparison on how different plants survive frost. It was very interesting to observe it first hand. Why it is important to know how different ...
How to Grow Early Peas in an Unheated Greenhouse
It was still pretty much winter here (March 10) at my first attempt to grow early peas in an unheated greenhouse. Now, you need to understand that we are in Zone 3, March IS winter with 2 feet of snow on the ground and possibly more snow to come. How to grow early peas in the winter in an unheated ...
An Alternative to a Passive Solar Greenhouse – Indoor Window Garden
Welcome to another update of our indoor window garden. Today we talk about the advantage of a window garden as an alternative to a passive solar greenhouse in a cold northern climate. In our experience the window garden has preformed very well growing year round in Zone 3 (temperature here can go ...
Controlling aphids with No-Pest strips
For years I thought that cold and frost are our biggest foe, but not any longer. With the indoor garden we can grow food even in -40 degrees. However, what turns out to be a real challenge is pests. Aphids, spider mites and scales can easily ruin an indoor or greenhouse garden. We mostly have to ...