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Keep Jack Frost Out Of Your Garden

Robert Couse-Baker
/
Flickr

It’s hard to believe it, but autumn frosts are just around the corner. Here's some tips on how you can protect your garden, and keep it growing into the fall.

Labor Day signals the end of summer but not the end of the gardening season. The harvest will soon come to an end. The next cold front can freeze gardens above 7,000 feet elevation. The foothills and plains will probably have a freeze in the next four weeks. Using season extenders keeps the harvest going a little longer.

How To Protect Your Garden

A simple cover protects against light frosts. The old bed-sheet over the tomatoes works. There are special frost guard materials that hold off the frost even better. Frost guard cloth and sheets are for rows or groups of plants. They also only protect against light frosts.

To really protect and keep heat loving plants like peppers and basil growing a structure is necessary. A small greenhouse will offer enough frost protection and daytime heating to keep plants growing. There are some excellent passive solar cold frames and greenhouse packages to extend the growing season to eight or nine months.

Start Fall Veggies

This time of year is a good time to start a fall crop of veggies. Sow spinach and salad greens it get them up and growing. You may get some salad this fall. And you’ll get a head start on salads next spring.

Sow snow peas in a sunny spot. Expect them to sprout up in 10 days or two weeks. They can take light fall frosts. You’ll have crisp edible peas in a little over a month.

The last weeks of summer and first weeks of fall are great for transplanting perennials, shrubs and trees. The soil is warm but the air temperature is cool. Plants don’t shock as much. They also develop new roots to hit spring growing.

tom@throgmortonplantmanagement.com

Tom has been offering garden advice on KUNC for almost two decades. During that time he has been the wholesale sales manager at Ft. Collins Nursery, Inc. Since January of 2005 he has been the owner and operator of Throgmorton Plant Management, LLC., a landscape installation and maintenance company as well as a horticultural consulting firm. He lives in northern Ft. Collins with his wife and two kids.
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