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 ...
Winter Growing
Plant Protection From Frost
Plant protection from cold and frost is an important subject for cold-climate gardeners. There can always be another frost after the "last day of frost" and before the "first day of frost". What are some easy methods to extend the growing season of the annual vegetable garden and grow healthy plants ...
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 AprilĀ . We were excited to finally ...
How Different Plants Survive Frost
What to do if there is frost in the forecast? First, know your plants. We are talking here about the annual vegetable garden and some common flowers. Plants react very differently to frost. Also, young plants seem to be more resilient. When you know how your plants survive frost, it is easier ...
How to Grow Early Peas in an Unheated Greenhouse
The question often comes up if we can grow anything in the greenhouse during the winter, or at least during what we call the second winter (early spring). It was still pretty much winter here (March 10) with 2 feet of snow on the ground and possibly more snow to come at my first attempt to grow ...
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 performed very well growing year round in Zone 3 (temperature here can ...
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 ...
Where to grow an edible window garden
Location is everything when it comes to a successful garden. It is the same with an indoor garden. Your edible window garden will greatly depend on the windows you have. Not every window is equally good for a window garden, let's see where to grow an edible window garden. Choose the best window for ...
Edible Window Garden
In the fall, when the outdoor garden is done and the temperature drops to freezing and below, we move back into our house and wait for spring grow an indoor edible window garden. This is the first post of many to come about indoor edible window gardening. Grow food year-round at any weather ...
Growing Overwintering Spinach in Cold Climate
Spinach is one of my favourite greens to grow in the garden, for so many reasons. It is the first crop to plant and to harvest in spring, it stays alive over the winter, and it needs no extra space in the garden. In this post we share with you a video that I made in the course of a year. There ...