Edmonton Experiment: Early Spring

10 years ago

Due to a 100% germination rate my seedlings overgrew their allotted space in the garage come greenhouse this spring.

With no where to put them, but outdoors, that's where they went. I hardened them off for about a week, ferrying them inside each night and then on April 14 planted everything from pea seeds to tomato seedlings and a herb garden with my surplus plants.

First I tilled the soil, then mixed in a lot of organic matter. Then I mixed in more, and yet more, until I thought I had put in too much. Compost, a little peat moss and manure. Then I re-tilled the soil and watered until saturated followed by laying landscaping cloth over my beds. The black cloth warmed the soil considerably. I did this while hardening the plants so that by April 14 my soil temp was 18 degrees C, and the seedlings were very happy after the transplant.

For vegetables, I planted the seedlings through holes in the landscape fabric, then wound soaker hoses through the beds.

I watered heavily and then mulched over the soaker hoses and landscaping fabric. The mulch prevents evaporation when watering and it adds a layer of insulation for the plants. Combined with 100% weed suppression of landscaping fabric, I am set up for maintenance free gardening.

For the flowers, I just planted with no fabric and mulched around them and over bulbs. There would be too many holes to cut for fabric with hundreds of flower plants.

Did the same for potatoes, just mulched over them, no fabric.

Came home from Vegas after a week and everything is still alive, even with the -3C we had last week. Got down to 0 again last night, everything is still green and growing and my peas and onions have sprouted.

Looking a the long term forecast, we're not supposed to get below 3C again, and May 7 is our 'normal' frost date, so after that I'm no longer in experiment zone. But it looks like last night was the last frost, giving us a frost date of April 20, for 2016. Which is crazy, the whole province is gonna be a crispy tinderbox this summer.

If worse comes to worse and my crops die, I will replant May 7. If they remain healthy, I will have a month's head start and my friends will all be very pleased with the free seedlings they get!

I will keep you updated on my experiment's status. My goal is to grow enough tomatoes to make salsa and spaghetti sauce for the winter.

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Comments (6)

Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
10 years ago
Sounds like you had good plan and will be ahead of most of us, including me. Sometimes you go by your gut feelings and sometimes it pays off.
marciaz3 Tropical 3 Northwestern Ontario
10 years ago
And sometimes it doesn't - I've been caught many times! LOL
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kioni
10 years ago
You are a brave gardener (!), & there's a high probability this will work out, as our spring down here has been quite nice. And if you've got blankets to cover on the iffy nights you should be good.

I'm at a an age now that I won't invest the physical energy in planting out the tenders (peppers, tomatoes and my precious annuals - coleus, sweet potato vine etc) until I feel confident overnight temperatures will be above zero. I have no qualms seeding peas, carrots, beets, swiss chard etc, since they take a couple weeks to germinate (so if it gets cold, most of the seed should be okay) and once up, they are little and close to the ground, so usually escape damage from light dips in the temperature. And if they do perish, all I've lost is a couple bucks for the packet of seed and the effort to scratch a line in the soil and plant. Easy enough for me to redo.

One April husband talked me into seeding carrots so we could have an early crop, and as a rule I will do 2 if not 3 successive sowings of carrots, so we don't end up with a tonne of carrots in one swack (I do this with green beans & peas also, then we eat fresh for a longer length of time). The second sowing was done either the last week of May or first week of June, and it caught up and was ready only a week after the first! So sometimes you don't always gain that much by planting out too early, since some plants will grow slower in cooler weather.

So good luck and have fun with that, I'll be checking in periodically hoping to see updates! Thanks for sharing!
Kristin Westersund
Original Author
10 years ago
I put water permeable frost blankets over everything I planted. They're basically white thin fleece, $3 for a 30x4' sheet. Let water and light through while keeping frost off.

I normally plant four crops of beans and twice that many of salad greens, beans a month a part and greens two weeks apart. Heating the dirt with landscape fabric or that black plastic speeds growth quite measurably while retarding weeds and I find planting a couple or three varieties that have variable harvest lengths ensures a all-summer-eating type thing too.

I hadn't thought about doing peas or carrots this way, I will need more sq footage in my garden.

Everything is still growing well under it's frost blanket - even after being snowed on all weekend. Tomatillos are the most finicky veg I grow and they're doing well.

Sadly, I gave away three really nice tomato plants to a friend and they left them out overnight uncovered and now they're compost.

I tried seeding some flowers this year and everything but blue asters died on me in the tray. I don't have enough patience for delicate. Sweet peas and sunflowers it is :)
Kristin Westersund
Original Author
10 years ago
Well, May 3 and plus 28 C. Frost free date is normally May 7 - so I am in the clear.

Cat ate all the corn plants, so I have re-seeded them, everything else is doing great!
Matthew Smith
10 years ago
my dad left some pepper & tomato seedlings out overnight in one of those mini greenhouse structures and they all got wiped out when it dipped to like 2 Celsius a few weeks ago. I've been bringing in all of mine in the evenings as I started my plants indoor this year and they're not hardened off yet.