Terrible locations, but the only options - tips and tricks, please!

Location, location, location... and I have the worst!

Each season, I learn something new, sometimes contradictory, about my gardens and how to make them work for me.
The first year was great, mainly because we had unusually fantastic weather.
Ever since, the garden has been very difficult to handle. Veggies always late to harvest, half need to be thrown away due to not growing enough to ripen before frost.
The latest and greatest discovery, beyond the fact that I'm surrounded by tall trees and hills, is that the only garden space on our small property is on the north side of the house and the east side. Both sides have veggie garden plots with raised beds.
I start from seed, and have given up on trying to start them indoors. I have one window but it is north-west and drafty. Seeds do not do well there, so I direct sow March thru May depending on what seed it is.
I purchased a mini-greenhouse with the idea to enclose one of the raised beds.
More ideas, tips, tricks are welcome and needed.
Thank you all in advance!

 

Plant heating mats for seed trays are necessary and cheap. So is lighting for seeds. Now grow lights are different but just to get the seeds up in a cool place you have to handle them with some movie magic and fake them out.

 

I don't know if this will help any but I used to put a good layer of fresh horse dung 20-30 cm below the top of my veggie patch, then sow, and put a frame with garden fleece or thick plastic sheets attached over it. The idea was that the dung would ferment and bring heat up, as it does when it's left in a compost heap, but would be too far down for the carrots to get to while they were growing. It seemed to work OK as a makeshift greenhouse.

 

If you remain where you are Beeker, The only thing I can come up with is to create hoops over your raised beds, although this is a way to protect your plants a bit, it doesn't provide them with the natural sunshine they need. My own small rear garden gives me similar problems here, and because of this I have decided to stop trying to grow plants that don't like this situation. I am trying to stick with really tough plants that will flourish in cold shady places - like grasses and Fuchsias. Veggies need sunshine.
Is there any possibility that you can move to a more suitable address for gardening?

 

@Beeker, I gardened on the North side of my house for ten years, but in cool summer maritime Pacific NW. Some things grew and some didn't.

I would choose shade tolerant vegetables - salad greens, spinach, radishes, collards, Swiss chard, carrots, maybe potatoes.

Mints, chives seem to do fine with shade. Also oregano, cilantro.

I did well with bush beans and peas.

If you try tomatoes or peppers, well, that's more of a challenge. I would try raising them up in containers. That way the soil is warmer and maybe they get more light.

I like to source varieties from Northern places. Fedco in Maine has always been good for me, and most of their sources are within 50 miles (if I remember correctly) of their co-op, so well adapted to there. Buying from national sources is less likely to yield varieties adapted to your climate. I think Johnny's is also NE but I don't know about their seed sources.

 

Beeker, it sounds like you need to extend your season by starting some of your crops indoors. Grow lights are quite affordable now - I picked up a set of lights from Amazon last year and it made a huge difference! Some of your warmer weather crops would also benefit from coverings, not sure how tall your greenhouse will be, but peppers and tomatoes would love that.
And I like Daniels advice about varieties that are adapted to your climate too.

 

Here's a video on how to build a hinge house for raised beds.

 

@Beeker this is the reason that I have a plot in the local community garden. Does your town have one?

 

All great ideas! Thank you!

@Dirtmechanic and @Netty - I have the warming mats and lights for starting seeds indoors but, in my current living space, I don't have any room to set them up again. In my dream-home (still only in my dreams), I have a room dedicated to my dream-garden (also only in my dreams).

@Tetters - I've been dreaming of moving for a while, believe me! I'm saving up and trying to be patient.

@Cayuga Morning - We don't have a community garden. I was hoping to be able to get in on the one in the next town over, but they are really strict that you must be a local.

@Daniel W - Great list of veggies, thank you! New England weather is so changeable and difficult.
I do wonders with radishes, they love my garden. My carrots bolted last summer (it was a brutal season but I was happy to get seeds and see which pollinators liked those flowers), I was thinking of trying potatoes this year, I used to have baby spinach that really did well and I can't find any to start it again, I haven't had any herbs do well for me yet and peas hate me. I don't know why, but I can't get peas to grow for me beyond a couple of inches tall. I'll look into the other veggies on your list. I've strongly considered growing tomatoes and peppers in 5 gallon buckets. My brother in law does that. The tomatoes don't do that well, but the peppers love it.

@Logan - Thank you for the video. It has a lot of great tips and tricks. I love the double-layer idea! I was thinking of taking a short cut by setting up a store-bought mini-greenhouse over one of the beds and also to give the height I need for the tomatoes and if I do brussels sprouts for a fall crop. I'm considering a hoop-house over the other beds for the shorter plants.

@Droopy - The fermenting manure for heat is a great idea. I'll look into that. We tried to compost, but it attracted pests. If we do composting again, we'll have to buy an off-ground, pest resistant tumbler.

Thank you, all, for the great ideas!
More are always welcome if you come across any!
There's snow on the ground now and more in the forecast, but I hope to be able to start soon. I've seen robins which give me hope for an early spring.

 

My better-half and I had a sad discussion.
We are planning on taking down the east garden.
The benefit of this is we get soil to fill the raised beds and good chicken-wire fence to reinforce the north garden that is deer-resistant (unlike the east garden) but not rabbit resistant. This is a piece of a picture I took that had part of the north garden in it. It gets more sun than the east garden and is better protected, except from rodents. The chicken-wire will help that.


I'm considering keeping one or two beds from the east garden for cool weather crops such as garlic, shallots, kohlrabi, and other veggies mentioned in previous posts.
The snow is still coming down, so we have time to discuss and plan.
Any other ideas are welcome.

 

@Beeker raised beds is a great idea.

 

Thank you for that video, Logan. I also watched the "10 Reasons Why NOT to Keep Ducks" video. Very interesting and informative. I'll bookmark his channel, too. You find a lot of great videos!

I've heard that a lot of towns have places where residents can pick up composted leaf litter, etc. from the autumn leaf pickups and other composting materials. I've heard mixed reviews about it due to residents using pesticides and herbicides and dumping their clippings and leaf litter there. My veggie gardens are organic, so I'm hesitant to use the town's compost.

 

Thank you Beeker, you can subscribe to his channel and it's free, you will get notified when there's another video.
I subscribe to a lot of them, a lot to do with gardening, a few about golden retrievers, 1 about the volcanos in Iceland
and some others.

 

Although I'm not very familiar with your area, I am familiar with ways to trick the soil to warm up, and get the most out of low light.

Putting clear plastic over your soil for a week or so before you plant can bring it up quite a few degrees.

After sowing your seeds, anchoring remay/floating row cover over the ground will hold the heat in the soil, speed germination considerably, and still allow sun and rain through.

If you can't start plants early, some seeds can be germinated indoors and then planted. There are many tricks on line for carrots etc with wet paper towels, water, cornstarch slurries..... You don't need grow lights to do this, and it can subtract weeks from waiting for cold damp earth to germinate your seed. It requires a lot of planting patience, but there is a benefit to knowing your seed is viable.

A heated soil cable can be a game changer. I have a raised bed with heated soil cable. It has a built in thermostat and is water proof. It uses hardly any power ( depending of course on the size of the cable and the temperature.). It keeps my soil at a great growable temperature for more sensitive plants like tomatoes. You have to be sure to mark where it is buried, as it can be damaged with tools and weeding etc. There are great deals for these around at garden centeres and I found a nice long one on amazon ( Canada). I'm in love with my soil cables.

I have placed tented green houses over some raised beds, but one must be very careful for rapidly increasing heat and humidity. I learned the hard way losing all of my plants one year after forgetting to open it before going to work. If you can keep a thermometer inside with a reading thermometer convenietly located indoors, it helps a lot.

Clear milk/water jugs can also speed germination and help the little plants grow a little faster.

Fresh lawn clippings ( yours) also warm the soil, and provide aid to the soil. Slugs however will thank you if you do this. (My slugs love me for using lawn clippings every year. Reglular slug party goes on - but it's worth it)

Dark landscaping fabric with a soaker hose undrneath will attract heat and what sun rays you have - limit weeds and help them grow a little faster. Holes can be cut, or rows spaced between them.

Remay fabric also gives me a much longer growing time. It warms the plant and also has some slight frost protection. It can also help deter too much rain if tented. The best cover on a very frosty night though is plain old blankets or a tarp. Beating the frosty nights can give root veggies and some greens the joy of what can be lovely fall days. Kale, chard and brocolli all do fine with slight frost also.

I've also done the green horse manure trick, however - unfortuneately - the hay the horses ate that winter had been treated with herbicide for broadleaf, as well as their spring grazing field. Horses don't process that. So....out had to come all of the dirt from the bed from herbicide poisoning. The horses have to only graze or eat organic ( untreated) hay.

I'd be very cautious of community compost for the same reason. Peope are well intentioned and it is difficult to resist a good deal, but all it takes is one batch of lawn clippings from a commercial property or golf course to contaminate the entire compost. Some plants don't care if there's a little bit of this, other's will die.

Although we don't have a choice with rain, if you water manually try to not use cold well water/tap water. Watering with very cold water can set some tenders back a week or more in growth. It shocks the roots and can take a long time for the soil to warm back up again.

I agree also that it is good to find veggies that do okay in shady areas. One of my veggie gardens is far more shaded than the other, with trees, boulders and a mountain. I do grow brocolli there, which can handle part shade and still produce, even after a frost. One that has great side shoot production is best as the primary head is often smaller. Also kale, swiss chard, spinach, loose leaf lettuce, potatoes and chives. I have grown carrots and beets in this garden, but they are wee by the fall harvest time ( which is okay to have baby carrots by then to enjoy.)

Good luck!! I hope some of this will be a help!

 

Forgot to mention....the 5 gallon pails can be great! I also have used a tote with holes drilled in the bottom ( a deep one...like a rubbermaid) spray painted black or dark brown on the outside to attract heat/and asthetics in the front yard. It is crazy what you can grown in one of those.