May 30, 2016

Avalanche column

May 26, 2016

Why extend our growing season? Our season is long. Most years it is from the middle of April until the middle of November or about 210 days. These are the frost free days. It could be said that is season enough!! That is unless you prefer your veggies to be fresh and untraveled!!!

There is no way to compare store bought veggies to home grown veggies. These are two very different things.

We do get some zingers during the winter but we have a very mellow climate. Ask the folks in Minnesota what a real winter is like.

We reside on the 30^th Parallel. This is unique. From the 30^th and south, daylight never gets below 10 hours in the dead of winter. Plants go dormant with less than 10 hours of light or at least have very diminished growth. Most winters our coldest days are in the 20’s. There is the occasional upper teen’s mornings but few and far between. When we do have 24 hours of freezing, seldom does it last more than 3 days. Cold spells are short and are followed by 60 degree temperatures. And then the cycle is repeated.

Most years it is only on the North side of my house where any soil is frozen, maybe the top inch or so. I have taken winter soil temperature readings (in the garden) at 5 inches and the soil is in the mid to lower 50’s. During the coldest part of the winter this temperature will drop into the forty’s.

This is significant. With temperatures below 50 degrees plant growth halts or is reduced immensely.

When I lived in central Oregon, most winter days the highs were in the mid to upper 30’s with overnight lows in the teens. The ground would freeze down 6 plus inches. Winter day length was less than 9 hours. The growing season was around 90 days. Finding or creating microclimates was essential in order to have a growing season. Besides during the growing season there always was the potential of a frost!

Learning to grow a garden in central Oregon was a very good teacher so that I can easily grow a year round garden in west Texas.

So the key is to find or create your own microclimates: this can be a greenhouse, some old glass windows propped up on the sunny south side of your house (walls on the ends are needed), cloche’s (miniature individual plant greenhouse), sunny courtyard, agriculture fabric, or even greenhouse film covered with fabric. These are but a few ideas to grow through the winter.

As for summer, the search would be for cooler locals. These could be the north side of your home, the use of agriculture fabric, or even a shaded patio. I would be surprised with all the abundant sun we have that there would be too much shade.

There are always new things to explore when you garden!