Got a spot you’d like to use to grow food but not sure where to start?

In this episode, we tackle a bare space with hard clay, in zone 3.

Let’s not forget the deer and rabbits. Oh, and there’s a narrow “hell strip” that’s needs to be planted too.

The good news is that there are lots of ways to add edibles to a garden. The way to start is by choosing a creative direction, and then getting started.

We work through two entirely different approaches to this space.

First, we explore a low-maintenance “grazing” garden with perennials. Next, we think about how to use a potager style in this space.

For the plant palette we’re including options for:

·         Partial sunlight

·         Good cold tolerance for perennials (zone 3!)

·         Less attractive to deer

·         Plants that give options for adding colour, texture, and height

If you’re looking for fruits, vegetables, and other plants that you can grow in the shade, here’s a post to get you started. 

Think your climate is too cold to grow tender fruit?

Find out how this grower harvests peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, and more…despite winter temperatures that can dip to -38°C (-36°F) and a short summer.

In this episode, Donna and Steven chat with Saskatchewan fruit grower Dean Kreutzer.  

We talk about:

• Fruit adapted to cold climates
• Using unheated greenhouses to grow tender fruit, grapes…and figs
• Heat sinks and insulated tarps
• Capturing heat from the ground—without an elaborate geothermal heating system

Kreutzer and his wife run Over the Hill Orchards in Saskatchewan.

If you’re looking for more on cold-hardy fruit, check out this post on Saskatoon Berries. 

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-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Do you have more seeds and plants than you can fit into your garden?

It’s a common problem for the enthusiastic food gardener!

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about finding more growing space so that you can fit more crops into the same space.

Get ideas for:

• Growing in ungardenable spaces…like the root-infested space next to hedges
• Reducing space used by pathways
• Tiering crops in a garden
• Using paved areas, decks—and stairs!

If you’re looking for more on garden planning, check out these 7 vegetable garden layout ideas.  

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-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Want to grow great tomatoes?

With the right transplanting and care, your tomatoes will be off to a great start.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:

• Transplanting tomato seedlings
• Protecting transplants from cold spring weather
• How to stake, train, and support tomato plants
• Pruning tomato suckers
• Watering and feeding
• Tomato challenges, including pests, diseases, and blossom end rot.

If you’re looking for more on how to support tomato plants, check out this article. 

-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Wondering when to plant vegetables? Not sure what to plant first?

You don’t need to plant everything at once.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about when to plant vegetables, and the Canadian tradition of planting the garden over the Victoria Day (May 24) weekend.

(Sometimes it makes sense…though not for all crops in all zones.)

If you’re looking for more on planting vegetables, check out this article on direct seeding. 

***

-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

 -->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

 -->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Your vegetable seedlings can look great indoors. Then fall like dominoes in the garden.

If they’re not hardened off.

But if you harden off seedlings, they stand a much better chance once you plant them in the garden.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:

• What hardening off means
• Why harden off seedlings
• How to harden off seedlings
• When to harden off seedlings
• Harden off seedlings in a greenhouse

If you’re looking for more on growing vegetables from seed, check out post on how to direct seed vegetables. 

-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Wondering about fruit to grow in a cold climate?

Today we head to Alberta, to find out how to grow saskatoon bushes. Arden Delidais grows in Zone 2—and doesn’t get any winter dieback on her saskatoon berries.

Delidais’ orchard and winery, DNA Gardens, has a number of cold hardy crops including saskatoon berries, apples, plums, rhubarb, currants, and haskaps.

Saskatoon bushes (Amelanchier alnifolia) are native to North America. (South of the border you might hear them referred to as juneberry or shadbush.)

Delidais tells Steve and Donna about:

• How to prune saskatoon bushes
• Saskatoon varieties
• Saskatoon pests and diseases
• How to propagate saskatoon berries
• How to use saskatoon fruit

If you’re looking for more on saskatoons, here’s a guide to growing them. 

-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Have you tried direct sowing but didn’t get good results? Wondering how to direct sow seeds?

Direct sowing—a.k.a. direct seeding or direct planting—is when we sow seeds straight into the garden. We skip starting transplants indoors.

It gives better results for some crops—because there’s no transplanting shock. And that’s great, because it saves you the hassle of growing transplants.

But some crops need extra growing time…and that’s where transplants make sense. Or sometimes, hot summer weather causes spotty germination outdoors, meaning transplants are a better option.

To ace your direct seeding, you need to know which crops it works with—and how to do it.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about:

• Why and when to direct sow
• When it makes sense to grow transplants instead of direct sowing
• How to direct sow seeds
• What crops are best for direct sowing

If you’re looking for more ideas for planting your vegetable garden, here’s an article with 7 Vegetable Garden Layout ideas.    

-->Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!

-->Grab the free e-books: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks and Growing Figs in Cold Climates.

-->And say hi—we love to hear what you think!

Want to harvest more veg from the same amount of space? You can get lots more from a small space by growing in containers. (If you get it right…but that’s not difficult!)

If you get these 4 things right, you’re on the road to container gardening success: 

• The right container
• Good soil
• A suitable location
• Proper care

In this episode, Donna and Steven share top tips for container gardening success, including choosing pots, selecting soil, finding a suitable spot, and caring for your container vegetables.

If you’re looking for more on container gardening, here are top container garden crops. 

Don’t miss out on fresh figs just because you’re gardening in a cold climate.

There are many cold-climate fig growers who defy zone boundaries with creative overwintering techniques.

Figs can take quite a bit of cold. Not the extreme cold. A creative gardener gets figs through the winter by moderating the extremes.

In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about fig-growing tactics for cold climates so that you can harvest figs—even if you have zone envy!

If you’re looking for more cold-climate fig-growing tips, drop by our fig home page.