Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show/podcast: Gardening in a changing climate
As mentioned yesterday I was at a Horticulture Day and was really looking forward to the main speaker, Meg McAndrews Cowden. She, sadly, had laryngitis and wasn’t able to give her talk on Gardening in a New Climate.
Her notes were in our material and I am sharing some of them with you today along with my own information over the years I’ve been doing Garden Bite. Meg has a book, “Plant, Grow, Harvest, Repeat” along with a website, seedtofork.com. Check those out!
As for gardening in a changing climate, and I’ve talked about this plenty of times before, plant native perennials and shrubs.
Talk with your local county extensions, soil and water conservation districts and/or master gardeners.
No matter the size of your place, planting a variety of natives will bring diversity to your garden and help thwart pests. Be sure to plant for YOUR climate zone.
If you are zone 4, you can try zone 5 plants but look for a microclimate in your landscape, maybe near your home or a place protected from winter winds.
Meg’s main aim is to extend your growing season for food and she says embrace those shoulder seasons with cold hardy vegetables like radish, spinach, arugula, brassicas and more.
With our extreme weather, droughts and floods and this LONG winter, think about
- HOW you garden and what you might change.
- Skip the tilling every year, deeply mulch your beds with compost, straw or leaf mold to help retain moisture. This will also help moderate soil temperature extremes.
- Pay attention to crops that do well!