I may be one zone ahead of you with 6b. I can safely plant almost everything by the first week of May. Plus, I do have hoops frames on my raised beds for the veggies and can protect them if need be.
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I may be one zone ahead of you with 6b. I can safely plant almost everything by the first week of May. Plus, I do have hoops frames on my raised beds for the veggies and can protect them if need be.
Hoop frames are a marvelous idea. We have always just thrown tarps or old sheets and blankets over plants when frost threatens. It's not ideal, but it was free and available when we were much younger, with more energy and less money. As the aging process goes on, I find myself rethinking how I've always done things.
Exactly, we are always finding ways to make our gardening easier. We might add another layer to two of the raised beds this year so that I don't have to bend over so far, lol.
Many years ago, we tried out square foot gardening for a few seasons. We were in our forties at the time, and already found it awkward to lean two feet over into the middle to weed. Eventually, my husband built them longer and narrower, but we still had to get down on our knees to plant, weed, and harvest. We gave up on that several years ago, when the wooden frames began to break down.
Last summer I invested in one large metal stock tank, just to see how it worked out. It's about three feet tall, so no bending over to speak of. But it was expensive, and I am reluctant to invest in any more. How many more years will we be seriously gardening, anyway? Five? Ten? Is it worth spending a few hundred dollars on more stock tanks? I don't think so. My husband is no longer capable of building them out of wood, and the ready-made (or kits) wooden ones are also quite expensive. It's a tough decision. But my knees are loudly reminding me they don't want to be crawling around in the dirt all summer.
According to the official zoning maps, we are also in 6b. So is my sister, over in Montana. But we both plant as if we were in zone 4, because we both are located in odd micro-climates.