Zone 3

[BabyBearsMummy]

Ok I have been small scale gardening with DDs help (a couple of wanna be )for 3 years now but havent been very daring with what I have planted so far. I want to be more daring this year. So Zone 3 ladies and gentlemen please share with me which types of crops and varieties you have had success with.


Also I think we are going to try some short season Sweet Potatoes this year. Has anyone had any success with them?

[TheGirls]

I am not in zone 3, but I have family who is, including one with a very nice garden. He grows cucumbers, hot peppers, tomatoes, winter squash, summer squash, giant tomatoes, kale... you name it, he grows it. He recommends the book "North Country Gardening" found here: http://www.neilmoran.com/. That guy also has a pretty good blog for zones 3-5. Lots of info on season extending and growing with a cool growing season...

[TheGirls]

Oh and I just remembered - the two things he's never had luck with are melons and sweet potatoes. Don't know what kinds he's tried though.

[BedHead]

For us, it's different every year wrt what succeeds and what doesn't. It depends on a lot of factors. Things we always grow are green beans, corn, potatoes, carrots, beets, all kinds of lettuce (some years we get in 3 lettuce plantings), tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions, and spinach. We've grown peas, garlic, peppers (never had success with peppers tho), turnips, cabbage, radishes, onion sets, parsley, basil, oregano, pole beans, pumpkins, yellow beans, brocolli and swiss chard. We use seed for everything and just plant it right in the ground on the May long weekend (Victoria day here in Canada) except for the tomatoes, which I buy as plants. Oh, and the garlic and onions - every year I get volunteers that appear as the snow melts, so I dig them up before we till and then replant them after.

The best things in our experience have been green beans, all the root veggies, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn (most years anyway), the lettuces and chard, spinach and onions. The rest sometimes work, the herbs were ok but not overly prolific, the pole beans went totally nuts but we didn't eat them, the pumpkins tend to grow so big then just rot. I'm sure if I was a better gardener we'd have more success with more things tho! I'm kind of a lazy gardener