By practicing the four secrets of winter gardening, local climate conditions are largely removed, leaving the power and strength of the sun to grow your crops. Here they are in a nutshell: provide a small amount of cover for the plants, choose the right plants to grow, have them at full maturity by the time there are only 10 hours of light daily, and don’t water them over the winter.
The small amount of cover can be a greenhouse, hoop house or cold frame plus the polyspun floating row cover fabric. The right plants are the many winter hardy vegetables found among the mustard, cole, onion, lettuce and beet families. For full maturity, starting them in late summer and growing them unprotected through the pre-frost part of the fall will give you the mature plants you want. And not providing them with extra water in the coldest months means they will not turn into piles of mush once they freeze.
The reason for maturity is that during the most wintry months, the plants will not grow once the sunlight stays below about 10 hours daily. They enter into a kind of suspended animation, and re-start their growth again when the hours of light lengthen as the season moves along.
Protecting the plants from experiencing freezing temperatures is not the point, believe it or not. Well-chosen varieties will be able to experience being frozen for a period of time. It is due to the protection you give them that they will thaw out at some point during the day, and can be ready to harvest when you want them.
They will over time get a little worn out from the repeated freezing and thawing, but you will be withholding water from them to prevent their cell walls from exploding when they freeze, which is what turns plants into piles of brown, smelly decaying matter after that first killing frost melts. Give them enough water during their growing time, and most will make it through to provide you with a fresh harvest during the darkest weeks.
With the protection afforded by a cold frame, greenhouse or hoop house — all plus floating row cover — you can also get a jump on spring planting and extend the summer and fall growing seasons.
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