Michael Czabator
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Joined: Mon May 11, 2015 10:53 am

Growing vegetables in northern states

I have been gardening for over 40 years but am just now getting on this internet homepage thanks to help from my granddaughter!

I live in Minnesota where we have only but a few months to cultivate the garden each year with a long winter. Growing vegetables during this short season has been one of my passions!

Does anyone have recommendations or suggestions from these northern states on how best to take advantage of our short summer and what is best to make the most use of limited space?

I will share my experiences as well! O:)

tomc
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Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 2:52 am
Location: SE-OH USA Zone 6-A

When I lived (and gardened) in Essex County (VT) a hoop house was my friend.)

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rainbowgardener
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Location: TN/GA 7b

Indoor seed starting. I start tons of stuff from seed, indoors. If you have a good enough seed starting set up, you can start pretty early and just keep up-potting, so by the time stuff can go in the ground, it is pretty good sized.

Image

16 running feet of lights!

And then yes, all the season extenders, hoop house, greenhouse, cold frame, cloches/ hot caps,

Here's someone gardening year round in Minnesota in what they call deep winter greenhouse. They aren't as specific as they should be, but I'm thinking it is partly underground.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/02/03 ... reen-house

Here's a pit greenhouse, that is all underground, except the roof:

https://www.treehugger.com/green-archite ... round.html

Here's some people doing geothermally heated greenhouse with ground source heat pump.
https://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org ... -altura-mn

But short of that, you can do hoop houses and poly tunnels quite easily. I collect the metal frames that political yard signs come on. They are a good size for a low tunnel. Just push them in to the ground, cover with plastic and secure around the edges.

Michael Czabator
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Joined: Mon May 11, 2015 10:53 am

Great feedback, everyone! Thank you! Now I have some great projects to work on with my grandchildren!



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