Growing Vegetables in Northern Climates

I traveled out to Pinehouse (Latitude 55'30°) today and had an opportunity to see this year's community/clinic gardening project.  They were lucky in keeping some early-planted tomatoes alive, but it has been a mild week.  This made me think about the whole notion of planting times in the north.  I usually add a few weeks onto recommended planting times on seed packets, and adjust for our short season.  We are in zone 1, which leaves only the Arctic/Antarctica for a worse growing location. 

So what are the guidelines anyhow? 

Vegetable plots at Pinehouse clinic

The frost dates for Prince Albert (2+ hours south of here) are June 2 (last spring frost) to Sept 4 (first fall frost), so our season would be shorter than that.  I'd estimate about 85-90 days, (though frost is still a potential occurence at any month, so there are no guarantees).  This is important for plants that need longer seasons, like pumpkins (120 days).  You would have to start long-season plants indoors to ensure that they would produce fruit by the fall frost date.  The crop insurance maps can provide information on frost dates, but unfortunately they stop just north of Prince Albert.  I suppose that is reasonable, given that no one grows commercial crops up here in the northern forest!  Internet searches find all sorts of irrelevant information from growers that think they live in cold climates, but don't really understand the north (i.e. they may recommend planting carrots in February, but I can't find my garden under the 5 feet of snow drifts in February). 

So, in the absence of expert data on these things, the recommendations of locals is useful information.  This is a summary of what I have figured out.  Keep in mind that this only applies to plants in the ground or raised beds.  This does NOT apply to plants in pots, as those will never survive over the winter here. 

HERBS:

Winter-hardy:

• Chives - Hardiest herb.  Perennial and spreads itself easily by seeds.  Grow some close to your house so you can easily snip some for your baked potatoes.
• French tarragon - Winter-hardy here. 
• Lovage - Large herb that is winter hardy here.  Tastes like celery greens.
• Parsley - Occasionally lives through the winter.  Start indoors in a pot or sow outside in late May.
• Thyme (English thyme; the edible kind, not the groundcover varieties) - Sometimes lives through the winter, though after a year will get too woody.  It is best to have new plants each year.  Start early indoors or sow outside in late May.
• Mint - There is a wild mint that grows around here.  Many mints would be hardy perennials, though they are also invasive, so I'd recommend NOT planting them in your garden.  Keep some in a pot and never let it go!  

Not hardy, treat as an annual:

• Cilantro - Not hardy in winter.  Sow early indoors or sow outside in early June.   Fantastic in salads and East Indian food. 
• Basil - A tender herb that cannot tolerate cold nights.  Start early indoors and let it go outside after June 5.  It grows fast though, so you could also sow more seed outdoors after June 5.
• Sage - probably not perennial here.  Start early indoors. 
• Dill - plant seed in May, very easy to grow and will easily seed itself if allowed to.
• Rosemary - A slow growing herb that is perennial only in warmer climates (think southern California).  It is far too time-consuming to grow this herb from seed.  Just buy a plant.  You can take it indoors as a houseplant in fall.

Rosemary brought indoors in fall.

VEGETABLES:

Winter-hardy:

• Asparagus - One of the cold-hardiest plants that exists.  I don't grow it, but if I had years to establish a patch, I might try it.  This plant is perennial.
• Spring/Green onions -- plant seed the preceding summer for nicely grown green onions the following June.  You can also sew in early May for green onions in the summer.    
• Larger bulb onions - Start seeds early (April) and transplant in mid May or start as onion sets outdoors in May.   
• Garlic - I am still practicing at growing garlic, but it seems to do okay here.  Plant as garlic cloves in fall.
• Rhubarb - Reliably hardy. Give lots of compost and divide in early spring, if needed.

Seeds suitable for early planting (e.g. first weeks of May)

• Beets 
• Radishes - these really only work if planted early, as they like cool weather
• Lettuce - plant early and replant throughout the summer for a continuous supply
• Spinach - does well in cool weather, so plant an early spring and a fall crop
• Swiss chard - I've seen some pretty spectacular Swiss chard up here
• Onion seed
• Peas
• Carrots
• Potatoes 
• Kohlrabi
• Turnips
• Peas

Probably hardy, but I start early indoors in May:

• Broccoli
• Cauliflower 
• Brussels Sprouts - I haven't tried these, but they should do well here
  

Tender vegetables - Start indoors for longer season plants, sow others in June:

• Tomatoes - Must be started from seed indoors in April or early May to produce any fruit before the first frost date.  If buying as potted plants, don't plant out until after June 4.  Season lengths are 60-75 days.  Pick varieties bred for the shorter season lengths. 
• Peppers - Must be started indoors in April or early May to produce any fruit before the first frost date.  If buying as potted plants, don't plant out until after June 4.



A zucchini variety sold for growing in containers.

• Squash, pumpkins , zucchini - Must be started indoors in April or early May to produce any fruit before the first frost date.  If buying as potted plants, don't plant out until after June 4.
• Cucumbers -  Would be best to give a head-start by starting indoors in April/May or buying as potted plant.  Don't plant out until after June 4.
• Beans - These won't sprout until the soil temperatures reach a certain threshold.  Plant in early June as seeds.
• Corn - My garden is too small, but this can grow here.
• Melons - I haven't tried these, but I don't think our northern summers are very well-suited to most melons, which like long hot summers.

OTHER COMMON GARDEN EDIBLES:

• Strawberries -- hardy, essentially biennial, and benefit from a protective layer of straw in the winter.  Bear fruit best in second year.  Root the runners to keep a continuous supply of second-year plants.  I have a day-neutral variety ("Hecker") which bears fruit over much of the summer.
• Raspberries -- hardy, biennial, bear fruit on second year canes.

Planting Veggies and Ignoring the Snow

There was a mini snowstorm here this afternoon, but the only lingering snow is in shaded heaps leftover from winter snow removal. We don't ever hope for a snow-free April here, but I do feel a little more justified in my disgust when it snows in May, or June...or July.
Does your police service include this kind of transportation?:

I was proud that I held back on planting my vegetables until this last week, hoping that they don't get too big before moving outside. Looking at my seed hoarde, I think that most of my indoor-start seeds are now in the soil (okay, technically, they are in a soil-less seed-starting mix). The remainder will be seeded directly outside. Come to think of it, now is the time to put out the poppy seeds.
Flower seedlings:

I start most seeds in little pots under the humidity dome on the right. That tray also has a heating mat underneath it, which helps some seeds germinate. Once they sprout, I transplant them into the other trays. I am not transplanting the tomatoes or pumpkins though, so those ones get their own pots from the start. I have three shelves, each with 4 fluorescent light tubes (half cool white and half aquarium/plant tubes). The top two shelves are partially heated by the lights hung underneath them, so the orchids on the top shelf are pretty happy.

I am growing a plum heirloom tomato and Tumbling tom cherry tomato this year. That should be nice for fresh-from-the-patio eating. I also have some Small Sugar pumpkin seeds sown and under the lights. They have a season of about 100-110 days, which is longer than our frost-free season, so they must be started indoors.
Tomatoes and other seeds awaiting germination:

Junction of land with the ice road on La Ronge lake (now includes puddles) and our dog:

Buds on a willow tree - sure sign of spring:

Northern Wild Berries and other Edibles

The boreal forest behind our house in northern Saskatchewan is home to a great crop of wild berries this year. I really should quit my job to become a berry picker for the next few weeks. Or maybe we can buy some berries from the Besnard Lake correctional institution again this year, where the inmates pick berries and sell them. No, they don't set up a fruit stand or anything, but I think we had connections with someone who worked there.

"The Bush" behind our house is made up of trees, shrubs, small plants, and lichens growing over and between large slabs of granite. These plants like acid soil, living in peaty organic material that builds up under the thick spongy layer of moss that grows atop the rock slabs.

June 5 photo - blossoms of American cranberry, aka Viburnum trilobum

Berries in our area:  Edible and not-so-edible

Lingonberry, locally known as "Cranberries"

Lingonberries, otherwise known as dry-ground cranberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). These plants and berries are really tiny, much smaller than the commercial cranberries seen growing on the Oceanspray cranberry farms. They are good in baking and make a great cranberry sauce to go with poultry.
Lingonberries: They have dry white flesh with dark seeds around the center. They are tart and crisp, but not especially juicy. If you live here and are lucky, you may find bags of these for sale at Robertson's store. Online information about these berries can be found here.

Lingonberry, cut open

Bunchberry, a variety of dogwood

Bunchberries (Cornus canadensis), the tiniest plant of the dogwood family. These berries are apparently edible according to this source from the University of Alberta. I found that a bit suprising, because most dogwood berries are identified as poisonous. They taste bad and probably don't make a good jam.








Common Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) is a little less numerous than the lingonberries. In my opinion, these are not edible. However, they have been eaten and there are claims for medicinal use.

Bearberries

Wikipedia includes this in its description: "Bearberry is relatively safe, although large doses may cause nausea, green urine, bluish-grey skin, vomiting, fever, chills, severe back pain, ringing in the ears (some people can withstand up to 20g and others show signs of poisoning after just 1g); take no more than 7-10 days at a time." I guess this berry falls somewhere between "deadly poisonous" and "foods to eat if starvation is your other option".

Bearberries, cut open

Though the plants look similar, the bearberries are easily distinguished from the cranberries by the smooth bottom of the berry, with only the solitary central dimple and little point that can easily be rubbed off. Cranberries have a ring at the bottom, with a little "crown" similar to that of blueberries.

Bearberries cut open. They are dry and pulpy.

Wild blueberries

Blueberries. These are smaller and sweeter than the commercial berries from the larger type of blueberry plants. None of these plants are taller than 12 inches (30 cm). They are extremely nutritious and are amazing cooked in pancakes. Of course, I eat those pancakes with maple syrup from our eastern Canadian maple trees!








Pincherry (Prunus pensylvanica) trees are a common wild tree here. Our yard is full of them. The fruits are quite tart and the central pit is large relative to the size of the fruit. The wild pincherries are vital for pollination of my Carmine jewel tart cherries.

Pincherries

Northern Comandra (red berries)

Northern Comandra,  aka "Northern Bastard Toadflax", Geocaulum lividum:  Found growing around many rocky areas around La Ronge.  Its foliage is bronze in fall, which is distinct from the other berry plants. The berries are orange-red and soft and juicy. They have a non-bitter flavour, though references call its edibility "questionable".  It apparently is parasitic on the roots of other plants, and it appears this one might be parasitic on the adjacent blueberry.  Parts of the plant had been used in traditional medicines. 

Northern Comandra cut open berry

Cut-open berry. They were the juiciest of the berries I cut open.

Red Baneberry

 Red Baneberry (Actaea rubra) is a perennial plant that grows very attractive berries in clusters held on upright stems.  I saw this one on July 27, 2012 near Nistowiak Falls.  All parts of this plant are poisonous, so please don't eat the berries!  The branch with its underside visible to the right of the berry is the foliage of this plant.    






Other common berries in northern Saskatchewan:

• See my post on some other berries.
• Saskatoon berries
• Wild black currants
• Wild raspberries
• "Cranberry" (Viburnum) -- blooms pictured near the top of this post

Garbagicus neglecticum var. beverageilis, yet another non-edible of the north. Distribution: worldwide. Considered a non-attractive invasive species. Often associated with lazy Homo sapiens who have no respect for the earth or other people's property.





Yesterday, I baked muffins with my own poppy seed, including frozen wild blueberries instead of the raspberries listed in this recipe from epicurious. They were delicate and delicious.

Poppy seed heads

Resident-lawnmower-man and I picked nearly one litre of poppy seeds from my flower bed. He's a good farmboy that can't see anything go to waste, so we'll either be seeding half the town in poppies or eating delicious poppyseed baking for months.


 

Wild roses are sporting bright red rosehips now. These are packed with vitamin C, though I haven't made any plans on making them into any foodstuffs at the moment.

Rosehips on Wild Rose Bushes

I also made a delicious swiss chard and parmesan pie last night. I found the recipe online here. I'd never grown swiss chard before, so the dish and the plant were both new for me. This quiche-like tart was quite similar to a spinach pie, with a more mild flavour. Kids and adults alike would love this dish. Resident-lawnmower-man was rather skeptical until he tasted the final product. He now admits that swiss chard is not only made for rabbits.

Precise edibiles-detecting tool:

"Why can't I go berry picking?".

I've got Subarctic Cherries!

Who says you can't grow cherries in subarctic Canada? My "Carmine Jewel" tart cherries (the cherry PR people think "tart" sounds better than "sour") finally bloomed for the first time since they were planted.

We planted four of these trees three years ago and trained them to grow a single main stem with a nice ball of branches on top. This tree gets the most sun and it has the most blooms on it. I hope it will be pollinated by the other cherry-related trees in the yard. I want some nice cherries to eat this summer!

The many forest fires in northern Saskatchewan are still burning and we've had several days of poor visibility in town due to moderate smoke in the air. There's no danger for our town, but bush camps and cabins are at risk of fires. Here's one of the water-bomber planes that flies frequently over our house. Its base is at the La Ronge airport.

Tulips. Yes, we still have them!

A nice clump of wild orchids in the forest behind our property.

This blue flower is Clematis macropetala, a hardy clematis I started from seed. It is growing up a cedar shrub which had a dead spot on one side. The clematis quite likes this location, since its roots are shaded by the shrub.

Close-up of the Clematis macropetala "Markham's Blue". I think that most of the fancy clematis types are not hardy here. I don't prune this clematis at all, but I may need to soon, just prevent it from getting too large. It's begun to reach its tentacles beyond the cedar, leaving vines waving about in the air.

Garden Blogging from Northern Canada

What is it like to garden in northern Canada? What is unique about my town? Here are my answers, so you southern gardeners can feel all jealous! This is a response to the garden blogger geography challenge, as posted by prolific garden blogger Jodi, over in Nova Scotia.

1. I garden in La Ronge, Saskatchewan. We are located at 55 degrees, 6 minutes north latitude. We would get the same day length as other parts of the globe at an equivalent latitude: Northumberland (northernmost county of England), southern Denmark, Lithuania, and Moscow.

View from the air of the government building, hotel, and a few local businesses:

2. We are in hardiness zone 1b. Yes mother, there are some hardy lichens and rocks that can grow here! (mother lives in southern British Columbia) Just kidding, I actually do grow mostly perennials.

The terrain looks like water with bits of land poking out of it. Interestingly, the land bits all appear to have a north-south orientation, so you can really imagine glaciers travelling across the landscape in a north-south direction thousands of years ago.

3. Winter is darn cold here. The coldest recorded temperature in La Ronge occurred in 1973, when it got down to -48.3 C (-54.9 F) in January of 1973. During this time, the plants are protected by a great blanket of snow, which protects them from the snowmobiles. In the winter, there are more ski-planes and snowmobiles than cars driving past our house! Winters are cold and snowy, but we get a lot of sunshine all winter. So if clouds get you down, come up here!

4. Despite the extreme conditions, there is some amazing wild flora including the pink ladyslipper orchid, Cypripedium acaulis. It grows only on the rocky granite outcroppings of the Canadian shield.

5. There is no commercial agriculture here, well...other than the harvesting of wild rice. We bought a 10 pound bag wild rice from a harvester a few years back and we're still working on it (wild rice pudding, wild rice casseroles, wild rice stuffing, etc.). It is harvested by rice boats, which are aluminum boats fitted with a big fan on the back for propulsion and a large tray on the front. It seems that they collide with the plants at the edge of lakes, and the seeds drop into the trays. The wild rice is not a native plant; it was introduced in the 1920s. It requires no maintenance once established.

Inside Robertson's trading post, iconic general store and fur buyer of the north:

6. I am greatly outnumbered as an monolingual English-speaking person. Most of the local population is aboriginal and speaks Cree. Fur-trapping is still a means of making a living here. The local afternoon radio program regularly reports the going price for beaver, muskrat, and marten.

I cracked up at a story I heard from a coworker who sent a summer student out with a trapper for some unique local experiences. The trapper found a trap containing a furry critter and the student asked him what it was. "Marten", the trapper replied. Not being familiar with local wildlife, the student replied "Really? That's really neat. Do you give names to all the animals you catch?". I suppose the student expected to find a George, Robert, Dwayne, and Stan in the next traps.

Ancient aboriginal rock paintings viewed from the Churchill River, just north of La Ronge. I can only guess this had something to do with hunting big game?

7. There is virtually no natural soil here, only muskeg and lichened rock. Our yard grows things only because we had a semi-truck haul in dirt from 300 km south of here and I add bags of manure and potting soil every year. If a little bit falls out of the raised beds, I carefully scoop it up and put it back in place. The natural soil is acid, so acid-loving perennials do better here.

While the dirt is "poor" for my purposes, northern Saskatchewan's ground is full of money. Did you know that the majority of the world's uranium comes from northern Saskatchewan? The public health people keep telling us the fish aren't radioactive (they are tested), but sometimes I ponder the health effects of eating northern fish.

Huskies in last year's dog sled race. I tried watching for some teams yesterday, but at -30, I waited only 45 minutes and then had to go home to warm my toes.

8. As I have written at the top of my blog, "the bugs are large". They are also bloodthirsty. Well, the dragonflies don't want your blood, but they do thrive on some of the healthiest populations of mosquitoes known to man. Then there are the "no-see-ums", bloodthirsty bugs so small that they get through clothes and bugmesh. Don't forget blackflies too, the blood-suckers that aren't deterred by bug repellent. They particularly like biting eyelids, and the inside of noses and ear canals (from personal experience).

Check out the dragonfly who liked my purple shirt. Honey, does this dragonfly make my waist look small?

9. Other people's invasive plants are my reliable perennials. I hear that Polemonium caeruleum is a menace for gardeners in Vancouver, but it certainly hasn't taken over my neighbourhood yet.

10. Our growing season is painfully short. I don't know what the exact frost-free period is for La Ronge, but Prince Albert (just over 2 hours south of here) has a 95 day frost-free season. We must be a few days less than that. I try short-season tomatoes every year but have yet to grow a successful crop of tomatoes that got red while still on the vine (vs. in a box in my garage). I buy tomato seed packs that proclaim things like: "bred for growing in a military base in Greenland".

Well, half of our northern summer could have flown past in the time it took my to write that post! Congrats if you actually read it all! You have the patience of a northern gardener!