13 Ways to Make the Most of Your Short Growing Season

If you live in an area with less than 120 frost-free days, you’re dealing with a short growing season. With a maximum of four months without frost, accomplishing all your gardening goals can seem almost impossible. But cold climate gardeners can still grow delicious, juicy tomatoes and harvest multiple rounds of greens and roots. You just need some savvy planning and season-extension tricks.

While you can’t change the last spring frost or first fall freeze date, you can take steps to protect your plants from the inevitable cold. But that’s not the only way to make the most of your limited frost-free days! Choosing the right crops and cultivars also has a big impact on the success of your gardening season.

Keep reading to learn the best ways to make the most of your short growing season.

Start Seedlings Indoors

If you want to grow cold-sensitive crops like tomatoes and peppers in an area with a short growing season, get a jumpstart by starting seeds indoors. Even if outdoor temperatures are still dipping below freezing, you can create a cozy indoor environment that allows seeds to germinate and flourish. When outdoor temperatures are warm enough for crops, your plants will be a few weeks old and ready to head outdoors.

Starting warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers indoors is practically essential if you live in an area with a short growing season. Additionally, you can start cold-weather crops like broccoli and cabbage indoors. Even if these cold-weather crops can survive subfreezing temperatures, most seeds won’t germinate at these low temperatures. Starting seeds indoors allows for uniform germination, earlier harvests, and a more productive garden.

Pay attention to your seeding date regardless of what type of seeds you’re starting. Sowing seeds too early means you’ll have mature transplants with nowhere to go, and starting too late means your seedlings won’t be ready in time for planting. If you’re not sure when to start seeds indoors, pay attention to your seed packet and your last frost date. Most seed packets will instruct you to plant seeds indoors X number of weeks before your predicted last frost date.

When the weather has warmed up outdoors, do not move your seedlings directly from their indoor home to the ground! Instead, help acclimate them to wind and sunlight by slowly increasing their time outdoors.

Grow Quick-Maturing Crops

If you live in an area with a short growing season, it’s easy to believe you can only plant one crop in each area of your garden. After all, a single tomato plant takes multiple months to produce fruit! But don’t think this means you need to write off multiple harvests.

Planting quick-maturing crops allows you to grow and harvest multiple crops from even the smallest garden. Just think—arugula is ready to harvest in as little as three weeks!

Let’s say you live in an area with a 100-day growing season. One option is to fill your garden with long-season crops like peppers and winter squash that take the entire season to mature. Another option is to grow quick-maturing plants like arugula, radishes, and turnips. Since these crops are ready to harvest in about a month, you can succession plant and enjoy multiple harvests from the same growing area.

Of course, you don’t have to choose one or the other. Filling one section of your garden with long-season crops and another with quick-to-mature plants will provide you with a continuous and diverse harvest.

Choose Short-Day Varieties

If you’ve spent time browsing through seed catalogs, you know you can find handfuls of tomato, pepper, and eggplant varieties. While you may want to choose the most beautiful or productive option, pay attention to the days to maturity. This is usually listed at the top of the seed packet. When it comes to long-season and warm-weather crops like peppers and tomatoes, choosing the right variety can be the difference between a prolific and disappointing harvest. Let’s look at cherry tomatoes as an example.

If you grow an ‘Indigo Rose’ plant, expect to pick your first ripe tomato about 80 days after transplanting. So, if you transplant a seedling outdoors on June 1, you’ll pick your first ripe fruit around August 20. That means you may not be able to enjoy many tomatoes before the first fall frost arrives. However, if you opt to plant ‘Patio Choice’ on June 1, you can start harvesting around July 16! ‘Patio Choice’ only takes 45 days to mature from transplanting, while ‘Indigo Rose’ takes 80 days.

Along with choosing short-day varieties for popular summer crops like tomatoes and peppers, pay attention to the days to maturity of fall crops like broccoli and carrots. Although these crops aren’t as concerned about cold temperatures, they still require adequate light to mature. Autumn brings shorter days and less sunlight. Choosing varieties with a short time to maturity increases the odds that the plants will be ready to harvest before reduced daylight stalls their growth.

Implement Interplanting

Why grow one crop when you can grow two? Interplanting involves planting multiple types of crops in the same area. This allows you to grow more plants in a single space and can provide additional benefits.

For example, sowing radish or arugula seeds around your tomato plants helps suppress weeds as the larger plants grow. By the time the greens start crowding out the tomato plants, the smaller crops will be ready to harvest. Plus, the tomato plants provide a bit of shade and protect the greens from heat. Other benefits of interplanting include pest control, improved soil nutrition, and decreased water use.

Some popular ways to utilize interplanting include:

• Planting small, quick-growing crops like baby greens alongside taller, slow-growing plants like peppers and eggplant
• Training pole beans to vine up sturdy corn stalks
• Planting nectar-rich flowers next to pest-prone vegetables

Utilize High and Low Tunnels

Let’s face it: if you live in an area with a fleeting frost-free season, it’s easy to yearn for warmer weather at least a few days of the year. Fortunately, you use high and low tunnels to increase your garden’s air and soil temperatures! Both structures use plastic to trap solar energy—the only difference is their size.

I like to use these structures to jumpstart the growing season in the spring and extend the season in the fall. Since they help increase the temperature during the unpredictable shoulder seasons, they’re great for growing warm-season crops like basil and cucumbers. Plus, tunnels help limit overhead moisture that wets the leaves and can lead to fungal diseases.

While unheated tunnels help you extend the growing season, adding heat further increases their usefulness. Many farmers put their heaters on temperature-controlled timers so they only kick on when the air temperature dips below a certain threshold. This allows them to continue producing cold-sensitive crops without racking up a high heating bill.

Protect Your Plants with Row Covers

I can’t overstate how much I love row covers. I use them to protect mature crops from early fall cold snaps, acclimate spring transplants to their new homes, and speed up the germination of direct sown seeds. In short, I can’t imagine gardening without them.

While you can lay row cover directly over your plants or seeds, I recommend propping the cover up with metal or plastic hoops. Hoops keep the cover off the plants and help trap more heat. Just make sure to secure the edges of the cover to the ground!

Another reason I love row cover is that it’s more forgiving than high and low tunnels. While plants prefer if you remove the cover on warm, sunny days, you don’t have to worry about rushing home to vent your plants when the clouds unexpectedly break.

Before you purchase row cover, be aware it comes in multiple weights. Lightweight options provide some cold protection but are better suited to protect plants from insect damage. Heavy covers provide more cold protection, so they’re the best option if you want to extend your growing season.

Choose Cold-Tolerant Crops

One of the main concerns with a short growing season is the first fall frost. And while this event will signal the end of plants like tomatoes, zinnias, and basil, it’s not a catastrophic event for every plant! Planting cold-tolerant crops will allow you to continue gardening once it’s cold enough to warrant wool socks and cozy sweaters.

Many plants withstand cold, and some even benefit from below-freezing temperatures. Cold-tolerant vegetables include carrots, kale, spinach, cabbage, and beets. When looking for crops that can tolerate frost, pay attention to the variety. Varieties bred to tolerate cold temperatures are the best option if you hope to grow crops past your first fall frost date.

When it comes to flowers, you can grow frost-tolerant annuals like violas and alyssum. However, don’t forget about cold-hardy perennials like asters, yarrow, and coneflower.

Experiment with Indoor Growing

While utilizing cold frames, row covers, and hoop houses will help you protect your outdoor plants from cold, these practices won’t improve the lack of light during the colder months. If you’d like to continue planting and harvesting new successions of greens and roots throughout the winter, try growing indoors. That’s right, you can grow more than herbs indoors!

If you’re new to indoor growing, it can initially seem intimidating. But when you think about it, plants growing indoors and outdoors require the same elements to thrive: light, water, nutrients, and a suitable growing environment. As long as you supply plants with these elements, they’ll thrive.

Indoor growing can be as simple as planting a few lettuce seeds in a pot and placing them under a grow light or as complex as designing a complex hydroponic system. Don’t forget you can extend the lives of potted plants by moving them indoors when temperatures drop.

Construct a Cold Frame

A cold frame is another way to protect your plants from cold temperatures. Constructing a cold frame can be as simple as placing a glass panel over the top of an existing raised bed. However, working with the landscape will lead to a more efficient structure.

If you’re starting from scratch, angle your frame so the opening faces south. This will allow the frame to capture the most sunlight. If possible, set the frame against a south-facing wall. You can also insulate the sides of the frame with straw or leaves to protect your plants from cold air.

While you may be worried that your cold frame won’t trap enough heat to protect plants from low temperatures, remember that these frames can also trap too much heat! If you fail to vent them on warm and sunny days, the sudden temperature change can stress your plants. Therefore, remember to open your cold frame when necessary.

Utilize Microclimates

When we think of climates, we usually think of major differences. There’s the cold climate of the Northern Plains and the warm climate of the South. But have you ever thought about the small differences in temperature and humidity within a single yard? These are known as microclimates.

Learning about microclimates can help you start plants earlier in the season and protect them from late-season frosts.

Warm microclimates often occur next to south-facing structures since these walls often trap and hold heat. You can also try planting sensitive crops next to east-facing walls since these areas are protected from prevailing west winds. Avoid planting frost-sensitive crops in low-lying areas where frost settles.

Incorporate No-Till Methods

If you’re growing on a larger scale and using tillage equipment, one of the biggest challenges is waiting for the soil to dry out in the spring. Even if temperatures are above freezing, melting snow and spring rains can delay your field prep and planting by weeks. The solution? Practice no-till methods!

One of the great things about no-till is that you don’t have to wait for the ground to dry to start gardening. You can prep the ground in the fall, cover it with a tarp, and remove the covering when it’s time to plant in the spring. Another option is to wait until spring, then use a broadfork to loosen the soil.

Transitioning to a no-till garden can take some time, so don’t be discouraged if your soil is compacted and hard to plant into the first spring. As long as you keep adding organic matter and disturbing the soil as little as possible, you’ll eventually end up with nice soil that’s ready for planting as soon as the ground thaws. Getting your plants into the ground ASAP will allow you to make the most of your growing season.

Use a Combination of Raised Beds and In-Ground Growing

Both raised beds and in-ground gardens offer unique advantages for gardeners with a short frost-free season. Utilizing both of these planting methods will help you plant your garden earlier in the spring and enjoy it later into the fall.

Raised beds are one way to deal with soil that is slow to dry and warm up during the spring. Filling the beds with a well-potting mix creates an environment that drains more quickly than native soil. When the soil is dry a few weeks earlier, you can plant your garden a few weeks earlier!

However, raised beds aren’t the best option for growing in the fall and winter. Since the soil in raised beds is exposed to the surrounding air more than soil in the ground, it freezes more quickly. That means fall crops growing in raised beds experience cold damage earlier than those growing in the ground.

Plant Storage Crops

Living in an area with frigid winters and a short season doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy home-grown crops year-round. Planting storage crops is a great way to enjoy your bounty even when the outdoor world is frozen solid.

When you think of storage crops, you probably imagine roots like carrots, beets, and rutabagas, as well as cured crops like winter squash and onions. And you’re not wrong! However, not all carrots or cabbages have the same storage properties.

If you plan to harvest them in the fall and enjoy them into the winter, look for varieties that are bred for long-term storage rather than fresh eating. Once you harvest your crops, handle them to improve storage. Properly cure garlic and winter squash, and leave a thin layer of soil on root crops like carrots and beets. Washing them can actually reduce storage time and lead to premature rotting.