If you love to eat fresh, healthy, and tasty vegetables straight from the garden, then you no doubt wonder how you can do this for most of the year. Most people assume they can only eat this way during the summer when everything grows. The reality is that there are ways to start gardening earlier than usual and even continue gardening well into the cold season. 

It takes planning and a bit of knowledge to be able to add a few more months to your garden to eat fresh vegetables almost year-round. Once you know what to do, you can make sure to continue your healthy hobby for many more months. In this article, we will go over the gardening tools and techniques you need to be able to extend your gardening season. 

1 – Build a greenhouse

There are some ways that you can start your garden well before the summer starts. The first step is to start your seeds early. You can do this inside the house, but if you have a greenhouse then this is your best bet. 

Get yourself a greenhouse kit and build one before the end of the winter. It should be made of clear or translucent material to trap the heat from the sun and create a warmer environment for plants. 

You can start your seeds much earlier this way so they are at almost full maturity when the weather warms up. Then, when you transplant them into the garden, they will produce vegetables weeks ahead of time. 

You’ll also be able to move plants into the greenhouse when the weather starts cooling down. Potentially, you could be harvesting vegetables all year round depending on your hardiness zone. 

2 – Select the right vegetables

There are a number of crops that you should be planting early in the season or ones that can grow well into the cold weather. If you pick the right plants, you can do multiple harvests in the same year. 

For instance, before you plant your tomatoes, you can plant peas, radishes, and spinach and be harvesting them before it’s time to get the warm weather plants in the ground. 

You should also plant some cold weather crops before the summer draws to a close. Planting squash, kale, and peas again will ensure that you are picking vegetables well into the fall. 

3 – Overwinter vegetables

One of the best ways to be able to eat vegetables straight from the garden for most of the year is to plant ones that can handle the winter. If you plant in time, then you can be picking these vegetables as soon as the weather warms up in the early spring. 

For instance, if you plant leeks in the summer and leave them in the garden over the winter, they will be ready to pick and eat before the spring even begins. The same goes for carrots and parsnips. 

In fact, these vegetables taste better when overwintered since the cold weather sweetens them up. 

In addition to these techniques, an often overlooked yet beneficial aspect of gardening is including pollinators in the garden ecosystem. For instance, if you have honey bees in your garden, they can contribute to a higher yield of crops. Honey bees are among the most efficient pollinators, which means they can help fertilize your vegetable plants by transferring pollen from male to female flower parts.

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Paul Petersen