Higher Yields

Tips for Extending and Intensifying the Growing Season

o most of us, gardening is primarily a summer activity. Come mid-spring, the weather becomes favorable for plants and pleasant for outdoor activity. We buy our starts from the local market, put them in the ground at the recommended times, water and weed regularly, and harvest what we can. As the days grow shorter and the nights get colder, we dig it up and pack it in until next year.

This year, however, we started experimenting with ways to extend the growing season and increase our yield. Not only did we get a larger harvest, but we were able to experience the joys of gardening for ten months out of the year, as opposed to only four or five.

Here are some tips which worked well for us:

Preseason Tips

• Start your own seeds indoors under fluorescent lights

Don't wait for stores to put starts on their shelves. Besides saving money, you'll be able to grow more varieties and have plenty of extra seedlings to experiment with or give away. Plant early tomato and onion seeds in late January or early February, other tomatoes and early peppers in mid-February, and warm weather crops such as eggplant and cucumber in mid-March.

• Use cold caps and cloches to get plants in the ground early

Plastic gallon jugs with the bottoms cut off make excellent cold caps. Remove the twist tops during the day to allow air to circulate; replace them in the evening to trap heat.

For a cloche, bend half-inch PVC pipe into a semicircle, and stick both ends in the ground. Stretch plastic over the top and attach with clips. Make sure the structure is tall enough to allow crawl-in access for weeding and pest control.

Don't be afraid to put plants out early. If a frost hits and kills your plants, you've still got backups under lights indoors!

Postseason Tips

• Bring some plants indoors

Peppers are perennial in their native climate-they can survive in pots indoors through the winter. Then you'll have mature plants to put back in the ground next season. Next year I'll try the same method with eggplants.

• Start late cool-weather crops

Greens and peas love fall weather. Using cloches, you can harvest well into November.

• Plant a nitrogen-rich "cover crop" over areas that you're done with for the season

Other Tips

• Harvest greens with a bread knife

Instead of picking off the outer leaves, cut the entire plants off one inch from the ground with a serrated knife. It works! They grow back very quickly, and you'll get much higher yields from fewer plants.

• Plant radishes with all the crops you start outdoors from seed

Radishes mature in a month or less. When you pull them up, your other crops will be nicely spaced and aerated.

• Plant root crops in raised beds

This way they absorb more water through the sides of the bed, and they tend to grow straighter and longer.

• Keep cloches around hot-weather crops throughout the summer

Unless you live in a hot climate (nighttime temperatures above 70 degrees), eggplants and peppers will appreciate the extra help. The cloche will help retain the daytime heat through the cooler nights, and the plants will grow faster.