We are in Alberta, Canada, at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains - plant hardiness zone 3A, elevation 1,037 m (3,402 ft). Yep, it's cold here! While the southerlies plant their garden, we pile up more snow, while they harvest their first crops, we plant ours, and while they still complain about ...
Gardening
To Till or Not to Till the Garden
To till or not to till the garden is a question gardeners in the past did not have. Growing up on a homestead, our garden was cleaned up, fertilized with composted manure, and turned over. We did that every spring. The young adults in our rural town would form work crews to help to dig the gardens ...
Preparing the Garden for Winter
Preparing the garden for winter, a time when gardens go dormant. Winter is an important time for the garden and the garden soil. You might have noticed that the colder an area is, the richer is the soil. There are a few important steps that can make the garden soil even better and also help the ...
How Different Plants Survive Frost
Freezing weather conditions 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. I knew about this, but it was very interesting to observe it first hand. Why it is ...
Convert a hay field into a garden
How to convert a hay field into a garden. This spring our Community Garden offered us to do a no till garden trial. We were immediately on board. We have been using a no dig or till method in our home garden quite successfully. To convert a hay field is a bit of a different story, but eh, we are up ...
Raised Window Protected Garden
The raised window protected garden started out of desperation to get all the spring seedlings out of the house a few years ago. It was our first spring in this house and I was super busy so Anna put together a simple temporary greenhouse that worked surprisingly well. Next spring I built a bigger ...
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 ...
How to Create a New Garden Bed
I'm always thrilled to hear about starting out gardeners creating a new garden bed. We need more gardens and more growers. Not even 100 years ago every family had a garden. Gardens are rewarding and fun. But how to create a new garden bed if you have none? A few things to consider first New ...
Starting Seeds Indoors (Free printable schedule)
Winter in our area isn't over yet. The last frost day is still more than two months away. But spring is coming, and with it the next growing season! Since our growing season is so short we get only about 100 frost free days in a row (if it is a good year, that is), we try to make the most of it by ...
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 ...