Harvesting Strategy For Large Gardens In Cold Climates

We put a fair bit of thought and strategy into the general harvesting of our considerable garden. When you're growing in a cold climate, after that first frost date, your garden is always at potential risk of frost. This video talks about how we prioritize our harvests to ensure we get everything that we grow from our garden.

If you're looking for our article we discussed in the video, you can find it here:

https://frostygarden.com/topics/demystifying-cold-hardy-frost-tolerant-sensitive-and-warm-loving-garden-plants/

We have a pretty short growing season and an even shorter "fall" to work with. Sometimes we get a week, sometimes it's a month. There's no telling what the season will bring! But, inevitably, the snowfall and very cold temperatures will descend upon us. It's up to us to make sure our garden is fully harvested by then.

Over the years, we have fully aligned our harvesting efforts based entirely upon the cold temperature tolerance of plants. This ensures we prioritize foods that will be damaged by frost. For more frost tolerant plants, we have a little bit more flexibility as these plants can easily survive the "cool, but not cold" temperatures we often see before winter sets in.

This strategy really helps us manage our time related to preservation. Growing a larger garden can definitely be challenging and harvest season brings a ton of work. Having a plan going in doesn't solve all the difficulties, but it does make things a little more manageable. Since adopting the ideas presented in this video, we have been able to preserve much more of our gardens.

Having a good harvest strategy also helps the gardener from becoming overwhelmed. It's easy to feel like there's simply "too much to do" when growing a large garden, but prioritizing things gives you a solid way to manage it.

We hope you enjoy our video and appreciate you stopping by to give us a watch!