It's early March and there's two feet of snow outside but I have gardening on the brain! We live in a slightly colder climate than I grew-up in, on the east coast, so my previous knowledge of gardening doesn't carry over as I would have liked. I guess I'll just have to start researching! The past two summers I've tried doing little herb gardens in planters on the back deck but, while they grew rather steadily, they never make it through the summer. Once a freak hail storm got my plants and another time they dried up when I was at work but this is the first summer that we've owned our own house so I'm determined to have something in the ground! This past autumn we moved just 30 minutes north of Calgary which places us in "hardiness" growing zone 4b(1) with a temperature range of -25°F to -20°F and according to the Almanac in zone 4b we can grow quiet a bit:
(2)Food grown in zone 4b:
apples, asparagus, beans, beets, bell peppers, blueberries, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, celery, cherries, chives, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, grapes, lettuce, onions, parsnips, pears, potatoes, pumpkin, radishes, raspberries, spinach, strawberries, tomatoes, turnip and watermelon.
(2)Flowers grown in zone 4b:
Asters, astilbes, black-eyed susans, coneflowers, crocuses, daffodils, delphiniums, hyacinths, hydrangeas, irises, lilies, pansies, peonies, phlox, rhododendrons, sedums, tulips, veronicas, wisterias, yarrows, and zinnias.
(3)Trees grown in zone 4b:
Scotch elm, yellow-wood, sugar maple, rocky mountain douglas-fir, black locust, ginkgo/maidenhair tree, white ash, black walnut, red maple, rocky mountain juniper, little-leaf linden, hackberry, ohio buckeye, ponderosa pine, manitoba maple, cranberry viburnum, white elm, European white birch, laurel willow, tamarack, lodgepole, white spruce.
Sources:
(1)Plant Maps - I used this site to find our zone.
(2)Almanac - This site supplied me with a list of food and flowers that can grow in my hardiness zone.
(3)Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada - This site supplied me with a list of trees that can grown in my hardiness zone.
According to the Canadian Garden website, each zone is divided into two parts, 'a' and 'b', with 'a' being the harsher of the two. You should be able to grow anything stipulated for your growing zone and 3 zones colder.
Words from the wiser...
I spoke with an avid gardener of the 4b hardiness conditions and he had some helpful advice for me:
-Most start gardening during or shortly after the may long weekend though it is best advised to wait two more weeks and instead if you're keen to start some gardening kick it off indoors.
-If you are moving indoor plants out into the elements start slow, a practise that is referred to as "hardening off." This is done by taking indoor plants out into the elements during peak weather conditions (i.e., warmer weather, no wind, etc.) and allowing them to adjust to their new surroundings.
-Frost doesn't kill plants he told me. It's the reaction to the sun shinning through the frost onto the plants that causes cellular damage resulting in it's demise. SO you have two choices...
1)Allow frost to get on your plants but spray them with water before sunrise to wash the frost off.
2)Avoid frost altogether by tenting your plants at night with a sheet draped over bamboo-sticks and secured by rocks.
-All-in-all our section of 4b mainly faces dry summers with the rare occasion of torrential rain in the evenings. So regular watering is a must!
Words from the wiser...
I spoke with an avid gardener of the 4b hardiness conditions and he had some helpful advice for me:
-Most start gardening during or shortly after the may long weekend though it is best advised to wait two more weeks and instead if you're keen to start some gardening kick it off indoors.
-If you are moving indoor plants out into the elements start slow, a practise that is referred to as "hardening off." This is done by taking indoor plants out into the elements during peak weather conditions (i.e., warmer weather, no wind, etc.) and allowing them to adjust to their new surroundings.
-Frost doesn't kill plants he told me. It's the reaction to the sun shinning through the frost onto the plants that causes cellular damage resulting in it's demise. SO you have two choices...
1)Allow frost to get on your plants but spray them with water before sunrise to wash the frost off.
2)Avoid frost altogether by tenting your plants at night with a sheet draped over bamboo-sticks and secured by rocks.
-All-in-all our section of 4b mainly faces dry summers with the rare occasion of torrential rain in the evenings. So regular watering is a must!
