The community garden behind the health unit on Dunmore Road. (Photo Courtesy of Ross Lavigne)

By Chris Brown

Green thumbs up

Stave off frost this year and get your garden ready for spring

Sep 29, 2020 | 5:10 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The change of seasons from summer to fall last week was the first sign, and a frost warning for Medicine Hat over the weekend was the second.

Gardening season is coming to an end.

“At this point in the year we’re looking at wrapping up garden spaces so if you’re trying to nurse along those last few plants to get them to have fruit ripening on the vine, like tomatoes, every time there’s a frost warning you need to make sure you’re covering it thoroughly so that the cold can’t get underneath,” Alison Van Dyke, food security co-ordinator with the Community Food Connections Association. “You can even use things like heat sinks like bottles of hot water or heated rocks to keep the heat higher in those areas.”

Overnight lows are predicted to be at or close to zero over the next couple of days.

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She adds it’s important to clear out your garden space once you’re done for the season, especially if you’ve had pests during the year or any disease. She says they can over-winter in that space and come back quickly and just as strong. She adds a high enough heated compost can kill some of that stuff but otherwise, you should dispose of it.

And it’s never too early to think about when gardening season will return and prepare for spring planting, she says.

“You can put in compost and mulch, you can mulch a top coat with leaf mulch or coconut core, thing like that,” Van Dyke said. “And now’s also a time to be thinking about maybe some early spring crops. You could actually start planting a few things now such as spinach and Swiss chard and this week is a good week to be planting garlic as well.”

For perennial flowers, she suggests that if you don’t have pests in them to leave the foliage over winter because it protects and leaves a habitat for things like ladybugs that hibernate and it gives solitary bees a place to hibernate as well.

Overall Van Dyke says the growing season was a positive one with more rain than usual and fewer hot days.

The region is spoiled for what can be grown here compared to others in the province.

“We get a lot of sun, a lot of heat and so we can grow things that most areas in the province can’t grow. This year my daughter grew watermelons very successfully. We can grow cantaloupe and watermelons a lot of bigger melons and squash that other places can’t, some fruit as well.”

You can find more information on Community Food Connections Association here.