Northern Canadian Gardening: Compost Piles as a Means of Extending the Growing Range of Northern Crops

Abstract

... The use of compost piles for growing frost-sensitive crops with long growing seasons holds considerable promise as a technique for northern domestic gardening, incorporating the benefits of direct garden seeding with those of conventional hot beds. The owners of most of the 50 gardens examined in Dawson in 1980 (McCracken and Revel, 1982) composted organic wastes, though none of them used compost piles for crop production. The abundance of compost piles and the successful growth of the volunteer cucumbers we observed suggests that this technique could be widely used throughout the north by those who wish to grow warmer-climate crops without a greenhouse, and without the need for bedding-out plants.