Winter Garden

[Dumbo]

ok, it's summer. But....

I want to know. If I build a cold frame here in winter (where the average temp goes from -15 to -30 with wind chill) and a few feet of snow. Will I be able to grow Carrot, Shallots, leek, onions, carrots, and all sorts of lettuce? I will shovel the snow off the cold frame.

TY for your input.

[Countryboy]

I don't think it likely. But it may be possible. Even tho u may protect plants from freezing weather u've got 'hours of sunlight' to contend with. Is there enuf in yr area for plants to grow?

I had good luck years ago with piling leaves up on a row of Carrots. Then the snow came and buried them even deeper. They were well enuf protected from frost that I dug up fresh, sweet Carrots all Winter. VBG

[Dumbo]

Well the reason why I asked the above is this:

Canadian gardening is pimping some sort of Garden book for winter.

In this girls basket there are shallots, either leeks or onions, carrots, not sure what else, and in the cold frame (which has the middle one covered in snow) lettuce in the middle frame is grown at a height that would be touching and spreading across the snow-covered frozen window. You can even see snow higher than the actual cold frame in the back of them and on the sides.

Yet everything is a brighter green than what I grow in summer.

Also, why isn't the ground frozen solid and onions and carrots are growing?

So I said to myself, this is pure BS and a photoshop job.

So when you look at this picture, does it seem normal? Natural that everything is a perfect colour and grown like it's 25C out, yet covered in snow?

How real is this picture and book being pimped? This is my real question.

Pimp my Book

[davefrombc]

As long as you grow short day crops you might get good winter crops in a cold frame. Leafy greens like lettuce and chard are the best bets. Green onions are possible . Carrots,other warm weather , longer day crops ....Forget it . Here on the 49th we have marginal day length in winter, north of 49.. forget it . Southern Ontario on the Niagara Peninsula, especially the southern tip might have day lengths long enough for most greens ,, MAYBE carrots or similar root crops; still short for most other crops ,even if you could keep them warm enough with bit of auxiliary heat

For those that didn't know .. The southern tip of the Niagara Peninsula is actually at the same latitude as northern California.

[OGrubber]

Laf!
Just a little pimping.
Prettywell and generally speaking, you need to get whatever you want to overwinter, to size, by mid October [around here - my place, ontario south coast] because that is when "growth" noticably slows down, and then stops end november[ish] when day-length is too short.
Some of the things shown in the pic will overwinter no problem in a cold frame and you can harvest from it through the winter, but none will actually begin growing again until marchish when day-length becomes adequate for each variety enclosed.

[Dumbo]

So this is over-wintering and not growing? Is that it? In other words trying to protect what was grown 4 months prior?

Because the intro says something else.

Frozen Growing

frozen_growing.jpg (14.98 KiB) Viewed 1091 times

She says she is growing all this stuff.

Even if it's over-wintering, does stuff stay that green and fresh looking? or is all this a photoshop or props?

To even remove 3 inches of earth in Feb I would need to hire one of these guys:

flamethrower.jpg (6.33 KiB) Viewed 1092 times

It's so cold where I am I can't even chip the ice off my driveway, but she is picking carrots and onions out of the ground and actually growing it! 365 days a year!

I figured she was some sort of super Horti-scientist that could feed the Eskimo's. So I looked into her a bit. She has a degree in, "Proven Winners Garden Guru". That's some serious stuff.

So I looked into How I could get a degree in Proven Garden Guru. I have 2. One more won't hurt. Right?

Seems all I have to do is give a cheque to this American company, provenwinners.com, and grow some veggies in Canada. Then I could be on Canadian Gardening's webpage!

I've already been taken with some bad gardening books (glad they were free from the library), but should I buy this so I could grow carrots and onions 365 days a year when I can't even get the ice off my driveway with a pick-ax?

Is this book cover and intro deceiving me for my money? Or is it real? And, If it's deceiving, then why is it being pimped by Canadian Gardening?

If it's real, is this maybe some sort of special arctic seeds? Is this even possible?

Seems some, or all of you, are saying this is "over-wintering". But this says growing. So I don't know anymore... I'm confused.

[davefrombc]

Welllllll..... Let's put it this way .. Ignoring the facts the photo is most likely "enhance" a little, growing in that case can be taken as "living" and holding its own as opposed to dying and rotting.
An insulated cold frame with heating cables in the soil would extend its use considerably in areas where if you go to pee outside in winter you have to back away from the icicle, but it still isn't going to take care of the light hours and intensity the plants need to really flourish.

[OGrubber]

Or, to put it in a slightly different perspective from Dave's [although I do agree the photo has been "enhanced"]; the veg haven't been taken out of the ground and put into "storage" so strictly speaking they are still "growing" in the same sense that a tree or shrub or any perennial is "growing" during their "dormant" seasons to continue their life-cycle once conditions are again favourable.

.... man, I wish this wind would stop, it's driving me crazy!

[Dumbo]

So would that 1/4-inch plank with that 1/8th window on top heat the earth enough to pull out onions, shallots and carrots? Or would I need a chisel and a blow torch?

Should she have a hammer, chisel, and blow-torch in her basket beside the onions?

I wonder if my wife would smile like that if I asked her, "Honey, go kneel in the snow and get some onions, carrots, lettuce and shallots from our winter garden"?

I'll ask her now... she isn't far... just a sec...

She gave me a look and said, I hate winter. Everyone hates winter. You know that. Why? Don't tell me you want to do that now! I'm not picking ice-carrots.

hmm...

[CdnChelsea]

Does the author of the article give specific instructions on how to do it?