Don’t have a heated greenhouse? Now that we’re four weeks to last frost, let’s talk about cold climate strategies you can use to get your plants outside, sooner.
The lead time up to our last frosts of the season are usually quite favorable. While it’s definitely too risky to plant this early in far northern areas, there is no reason your hardened off plants can’t enjoy some time outside on those nicer days! In fact, they’ll benefit greatly from it!
Before we had a heated greenhouse, we used to frequently practice the indoor-outdoor shuffle. Basically, this means that any time we could safely get our plants outdoors, we’d do so.
You can even leave your plants outside, overnight, as long as the low overnight temperatures are supportive of it. Remember all those posts about temperature tolerance and plant safety we’ve been talking about recently? Well, this is how you can practically use that information! But, in case you missed it, our cutoff is 40F for most plants. 50F for cukes, peppers and other warm loving plants.
It is crucially important to keep a very close eye on weather conditions while you do this, especially when leaving your plants out overnight. If a day or night looks like it might be too risky, you can (and should) skip those days! If overnight lows look “close” to those cutoffs, we won’t risk it. But, we’ve found that usually, many days and nights of the shoulder season are suitable for having our plants outside.
This also directly translates to energy savings, too. Any time your plants are outside, those grow lights can be turned off. Your plants will get far better lighting from the sun, stronger stalks from the wind and sometimes even thorough watering from the rain.
Plus, as we get closer and closer to those last frosts, the more time outside those plants can get! Many years, we were able to keep our plants outside for weeks prior to planting!
So, if you don’t have a greenhouse, but you want those same benefits, this is how you do it! Yeah, it’s a bit of labor, but those plants will appreciate it!
