Once you’ve completed this lesson, you’ll be able to:

• 1. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of different methods of vegetable growing in cold climates.
• 2. Protect plants from cold weather by constructing small-sized film shelters.
• 3. Take care of plants in cold weather conditions.

WHAT IS COLD WEATHER GARDENING

In areas with cold climates, cold-tolerant plants can be grown under film. This will protect the plants from cold winds, snow, and frost. Carrots, radishes, peas, cabbage, broccoli, chard, lettuce, onions, beans and other hardy plants can be planted a few weeks earlier than usual, increasing the length of the growing season and the harvest from the garden. Vegetable growing in cold weather is not advisable in all regions. In the case of greenhouses, calculate how much it will cost to supply the greenhouses with artificial heat and compare this amount with the profit from an earlier harvest or from a year-round harvest.

HOW TO PROTECT PLANTS FROM THE COLD

The Mittleider method is quite flexible and gives a wide range of choices. You can choose from several options depending on whether you use narrow beds or box beds, and whether you have a greenhouse or not. o You can cover narrow soil beds or narrow (mini) bed boxes by constructing wire frames and stretching a film over them. The film will protect plants from cold winds, snow and rain.

• • Larger boxes can be framed with plastic pipes.
• • You can build a greenhouse and grow seedlings in it or grow crops in it until they are fully ripe.

FILM GREENHOUSES FOR NARROW BEDS

• STEP 1. Cut a wire with a diameter of 4-5 mm into pieces of 1.5 m.
• STEP 2. Make narrow beds and plant seedlings taken from the greenhouse, or sow.

Those seeds.

• STEP 3. Take the cut pieces of wire, bend them into an arched shape and build the frames over the narrow ridges.
• STEP 4. Cover the frames with a transparent film, O.1 mm thick and 1.2 m wide.

Film greenhouse on a narrow ridge:

• STEP 5. To hold the film in place, secure it with a layer of soil by pouring soil over the edges of the film on both sides of the bed.

FILM GREENHOUSES FOR BED BOXES

If you have bed boxes, then you can build film greenhouses over them to grow vegetables in cold weather. The beds themselves serve as the base of the greenhouse. Use polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes to construct the frame. PVC is lightweight, durable and easy to work with. Instructions for the step-by-step construction of such film shelters are given below. As an example, an A-shaped frame for mini-bed boxes (45 cm wide) is described. This is the best type of plastic frame for bed boxes. After installing the A-supports, cover them with 0.1 mm thick polyethylene film. This is so that they can be easily lifted when crop care or ventilation is required. On the A-frame for 45 cm bed boxes, there is no need to sew on the film – just leave it lying loosely on the frame and fix it on the sides by pouring soil on the edges of the film, as described for greenhouses installed over conventional narrow beds.

CONSTRUCTION OF AN A-SHAPED FRAME FOR MINI BED BOXES

• STEP 1. Cut the inch PVC pipe into 35 cm long pieces, which will be driven into the ground next to the side walls of the box and the A-supports will be inserted into them.
• STEP 2. Starting from the corners, mark the side walls of the bed boxes every 60 cm.
• STEP 3. At each mark, hammer in a piece of pipe. The top of the pipes and the top of the side wall of the bed box should be at the same level. When hammering pipes, place wooden blocks on top of them so that you do not hit the plastic pipes with a hammer.
• STEP 4. Drill through the pipes with a diameter of 1.5 mm 5 cm below the top edge of the bed box wall.
• STEP 5. Take short pieces of wire with a diameter of 1.6-2 mm and attach the pipes to the walls of the drawer. Metal 11-shaped staples can be used instead of wire.
• STEP 6. Stepping back 12.5 cm from the top of the pipe, make marks, and at the level of this mark, drill a through hole with a diameter of 1.5 mm. Insert a 10 cm long nail into the hole. This nail controls the depth to which the A-post posts will enter the pipes when they are installed.
• STEP 7. Cut a 0.5 inch pipe into 1.5 m long pieces, making marks 35 cm from each end of the pipe. Make the next two marks every 30 cm and leave 10 cm in the center.
• STEP 8. Squeeze the pipe at an acute angle at the marks and bend it to give it an 11-shape shape.
• STEP 9. Insert the ends of the 11-shaped pipes into the inch pipes so that the frame encloses the drawer on the sides.
• STEP 10. From a 1.8 m wide roll of film, cut a piece large enough for a drawer-ridge. Slide the film onto the A-frame, stretching it smoothly along the sides of the drawer.
• STEP 11. To secure the film, pour soil over the edges of the film lying on the ground.

CARING FOR PLANTS IN COLD WEATHER

Through the film, the sun will quickly warm the soil, stimulating plant growth. On warmer days, lift the film on one side and fold it, exposing the plants so they can benefit from full sunlight. If the weather changes abruptly, cover the frames again with foil to protect the plants. During periods of cold weather, do not water your plants daily. In cold weather, plants do not evaporate too much moisture. One watering per week may be enough. Fertilizer should also be applied less frequently than usual. One feeding with a mixture of 2 every two weeks is enough.

WHEN IS IT ADVISABLE TO USE A GREENHOUSE?

A greenhouse is needed to grow strong, healthy seedlings for spring planting. The greenhouse also helps to control insects and diseases, improves the nutritional quality of the crop and allows you to produce more food from a smaller area. If in your climate the daytime temperature in winter ranges from 7 C to 24 C, and at night does not drop below -3″C, then plants in a greenhouse can be grown all year round without the use of any artificial heating. If in your climate the cold season lasts 12 weeks with daytime temperatures between 4″C and 16″C, and nighttime temperatures do not drop below -10°C, the plants can be grown in a greenhouse all winter, but the cost of heating during the coldest weeks can make your project economically unviable. Under these conditions, thanks to careful planning, you can have two harvests outside the normal vegetable growing period with minimal input. Grow crops in early spring first and harvest to plant new crops in time for the summer. Then start growing the autumn crop. It is necessary for the plants to achieve maximum fruit formation and vegetative growth by the end of autumn. Then, during the colder months of December and January, only enough heat should be applied to keep the plants from freezing by keeping the temperature above 0 C. Plants will grow at a reduced rate during these cold months, but they will gradually mature. In regions with colder climates, year-round cultivation of vegetables in greenhouses is not feasible in most cases.

GROWING PLANTS IN GREENHOUSES BEFORE MATURITY

Cultivation of crops in a hotbed was discussed in lecture 8. If you are interested in growing plants in a greenhouse before ripening (e.g. tomatoes or cucumbers), build a greenhouse and proceed as follows:

1. Construct the boxes, leaving convenient passages between them (see lecture 9).
2. Prepare the bed boxes for sowing by filling the frames with artificial soil, applying pre-sowing fertilizer, mixing them with the soil, and moistening the soil (see lecture 9).
3. Sow seeds or plant seedlings in bed boxes (see lecture 9).
4. Carry out weekly fertilization of plants by applying a strip of dry fertilizer mixture and dissolving them with watering. To fertilize plants in the greenhouse, use a mixture of 2A with the trace elements described in lecture 9. The application rate is 50 g per linear meter of the bed.
5. Take care of your plants by directing their growth vertically and pruning them (see lectures 4 and 5).
6. Heat the greenhouse with a lamp or other artificial heat source to keep the plants from freezing.
7. Ventilate the greenhouse when the daytime temperature is above 0 C. If the temperature inside the greenhouse rises to 38 C, use a shade cloth to cool the greenhouse.
8. Water when needed. If you are using a greenhouse to grow plants to full maturity, then some crops may need hand pollination.

For more information, refer to the book “More Food from Your Garden” by Jacob R. Mittleider.

RESUME

• Growing vegetables in cold weather is beneficial because it lengthens the growing season, giving early, out-of-season harvests.
• In harsh climates, growing vegetables in cold weather is not always economically feasible due to the high costs of maintaining artificial heat and lighting in greenhouses.
• Dr. Mittleider’s method provides a variety of low-cost solutions to make growing vegetables in cold weather easier, more practical, and more enjoyable.
• Simple film frames can be constructed to cover narrow beds or bed boxes.
• In cold weather, give your plants less water than usual and fertilize less frequently.
• Take care to ensure good ventilation for plants grown under plastic wrap. On sunny days, open the frames and give the plants full sunlight.

Source:

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