Many vegetable gardeners are keen to get started for the season well before spring is here, but tend to wait until the last frost has passed. But there’re many ways to add weeks or more to both ends of the growing season, giving you earlier produce & higher yields.
If finances permit you could go all out & purchase a poly tunnel, or a heated greenhouse (although the energy requirements for this adds to costs & is less environmentally friendly). However – most of us can afford the following suggestions.

1. Cold Frames are basically small structures that create the same kinds of conditions that a glasshouse does, but on a much smaller & more affordable scale. Many gardeners make their own from a metal or wooden frame that has a glass or plastic lid. Sunshine is then used to warm the enclosed area. It can occasionally be used to heat up the soil for a few weeks prior to seeding & be left in place for a few weeks after seedlings have come through ? protecting the tender seedlings from frost at night. Opening the lid of your cold frame on sunny days will stop over-heating.
You can also use cold frames to get trays of seedlings started early.

2. Floating Row Covers can be often used for longer rows. There is more. There is more. They are made from fabric that is specifically designed for crop protection. They are porous & so allow sunlight, water, & some air through for ventilation. The fabric is light weight so can easily be supported with PVC or similar. Floating row covers offer 4-5 degrees of frost protection. An additional benefit is that they screen diseases & pest insects so your yields are not only earlier, but often of better quality. Some crops require pollination or may be sensitive to heat, so care must be taken to get rid of covers at the right time to allow for the special needs of particular plants.
A cloche is a similar concept to floating row covers, but is generally made from plastic. It can occasionally be used to cover rows or just an individual plant. A 2litre soft-drink bottle could be used as a very basic cloche for a single plant.

3. A very simple & occasionally overlooked way to prolong your harvest is to Keep Picking. Many plants will start to slow down if the fruit is left on the plant. Once a plant has set seed its primary purpose is complete. So if you leave your capsicum (peppers), beans, zucchini, eggplant etc. to ripen, you will limit your yields. Keep picking fresh young vegetables & they will be replaced with more fresh young vegetables. Give them a light feed mid-summer ? not too much nitrogen ? to keep them producing as long as possible.

Keeping your vegetable plants healthy is one of the best ways make certain you will have a long producing vegetable garden. Succession planting means planting the same type of vegetable every two to three weeks to bring you a longer & continual supply of your favourite vegetables. There is more. There is more. This also extends your harvesting time. Succession plant well into autumn (fall), searching for late varieties & implement these three techniques so that you have a bountiful harvest.

Hi, I am an avid organic gardener & am known by my friends as the recycling queen. I live on a small country property in South Australia. It is my mission to encourage as many people as possible to start organic gardening. Do you follow? This will improve both our individual lives & the wellbeing of our personal & global environments. Please visit my website & get your free 3 part Composting Guide. For Companion Planting info click here. Happy gardening, healthy living?
Julie Williams
http://www.1stoporganicgardening.com