Cool Season Vegetable Gardening
Gives Advantages to Northern Zones

Check out these pages:

Buying Seeds or Seedlings for Your Vegetable Garden
Buying seeds or seedlings carefully for your vegetable garden puts you well on the way to a successful garden
Is Year Round Gardening Possible in Zone 3?
While true year round gardening outdoors in Zone 3 can be tough, many cold hardy vegetables can last well into winter in a simple cold frame or low tunnel.
Vegetable Gardening Basics
Vegetable gardening basics start with picking a garden site and choosing between traditional and organic gardening methods.
Leverage zone 3 advantages for cool season crops by planting early
Cold climate gardeners sometimes mistakenly think cool season crops don’t need to be planted early.
Hardening plants off is essential for avoiding transplant shock
Hardening plants, while essential for ensuring the survival of your seedlings, can be challenge if you work a full-time job.
Starting Seeds Indoors is Essential in Short Season Growing Zones
Starting seeds indoors not only helps to break up a long winter but also gives a jump on the season without breaking the bank
Controlling weeds in your vegetable garden without using herbicides
With the right tools and some consistency, controlling weeds in your vegetable garden without herbicides is not a big deal.
Growing microgreens – A taste of summer in the middle of winter
Extend the season by growing microgreens indoors in the winter. A fresh taste of summer goodness using very little equipment and taking very little space.
Winter Sowing, also known as Milk Jug Gardening gives jump on spring.
Fun alternative to starting seeds indoors—winter sowing your seeds outdoors in milk jugs and juice containers gives pre-hardened off seedlings for spring.
Vegetable Storage After Fall Harvest in Cooler Climates
Curing vegetable harvest and good vegetable storage methods are key to continuous supply of homegrown vegetables in winter months in harsher climate zones.
Traditional Vegetable Gardening For Low-Cost, Low-Maintenance Harvest
Traditional Vegetable Gardening, while becoming less popular, can still provide an abundance of fresh vegetable for a minimal investment of work and money.
Growing Sprouts in a Mason Jar—Easy, fresh local produce year-round
Growing sprouts in a mason jar is a quick, easy, clean, way to break the winter blahs without necessitating soil, grow lights or other fancy equipment.
Frost Protection For Plants Is Critical in Cool Season Gardening
Knowing when and how to provide frost protection for plants is simple but critical in the short season that vegetable gardeners have in Zone 3
Is composting in winter feasible in cold climates like zone 3?
Composting in winter is possible even in the cold climate of Zone 3. However “northern” is a relative term. Take all “northern advice” in context.

Northern Advantages

Cool Season Vegetable Gardening can be challenging.

November in Growing Zone 3b

To a southerner, cool season vegetable gardening only occurs in the shoulder season, but in the north sometimes it feels like we live in the permanent shoulder season.

Now I don't want our southern friends to get jealous but we in the short growing season of Zone 3 have some advantages that you lack.

	Not only do our relatively harsh winters kill a lot of the pests and diseases that hotter climates deal with, but also our long summer days make plants grow faster.
	What your science teacher told you is true. Plants need light for photosynthesis and what northern gardening lacks in heat, it makes up for in long, long hours of sunlight in late spring and early summer.
	While southern gardeners have to wait until the shoulder season to plant cold loving plants, these plants thrive in the land of the permanent shoulder season.
	And in the dead of winter, no imported produce can compare to the preserves of your own harvest.

Cool Season Vegetable
Gardening is Addicting

A snow comparison of November and February in Zone 3b

February can get bitter in Zone 3b

Now don’t get me wrong, short season gardening has its challenges but that’s the fun of gardening, and believe me, gardening is fun, addicting even!

It can get discouraging going to websites, blogs, or Facebook pages trying to get some gardening tips, only to realize that they can't relate to where you are.

This website aims to fix that. We are aiming at true Cool Weather Gardeners. Whether you use traditional or organic methods or a combination of the two, we hope you will find useful, practical tips on this site.

There are lots of plants that tolerate the cool weather found in the plant hardiness zone 3 in much of the northern US and southern Canada exceptionally well and even despise the heat. Peas, beets, spinach and greens love the cool weather. Onions thrive in the long hours of daylight in the upper latitudes during the months of June and July. There are lots of cucumbers and corn that are bred for short seasons.

If you are into market gardening, you can even push the envelope by putting row covers over your string beans and green sprouting your potatoes to get the jump on the competition.

Yes, you will have to start your tomatoes and peppers indoors or buy plants, and yes, you may have to ripen some of your crop indoors. Yes, you may have to cure your winter squash and pumpkins off the vine. You may need to cover your seedlings for late spring frosts or go out with the water hose before sunrise in the early fall.

BUT IT’S STILL FRESH, IT’S STILL LOCAL, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, YOU GREW IT.