Here in Montana, we have had an especially long winter this year. This comes with many benefits, but also some negative effects.

Positives

1. One huge benefit of having a longer winter, is the additional moisture. In Montana, it hardly ever rains, meaning we get most of our moisture for the year from snowfall and snow melt. When we have a longer winter, we typically receive snow well into April, May, and sometimes June. This ensures that we have plenty of moisture and helps us have greener pastures during the summer. This is incredibly beneficial for our hay crop and helps us get higher yields per acre. It also helps get nutrients to the soil and can help our garden be more productive in a shorter amount of time, which is nice because when you have long winters like the one we are having now, you need to make the most of the shorter growing season.

2. Another benefit to having a longer winter is that because there is so much more moisture, there are likely to be less forest fires during the summer. This is a game changer, because nothing is worse than when the air is full of smoke and the air quality is low. Although forest fires can be good and are a natural process in nature, minimizing the amount of these is vital to saving the critters and animals that habitat in those affected areas.

3. Finally, longer winters can be really good for your health. There are studies that say that long winters can help improve your immune system, improve brain function, and even slow down the aging process. This means that if you are living in a long winter, it actually may be helping you more than you know.

Negatives

1. The obvious negative to a long winter is that it takes longer for summer to arrive. If your anything like me, you love summer. Grilling in the backyard, mountain bike rides, long summer hikes, fishing - I could go on and on. When you are going through a long winter, these activities get put on the back burner until all the snow melts and if you are experiencing colder temps in the spring, this might delay this from happening.

2. Another negative part about long winters, is that it means you have a shorter growing season. We typically plant our seedlings in March with the hope to transplant them outside in late may/early June. When we have a long winter, sometimes the ground is not warm enough for the transplants and we risk having a cold spell come in and ruin the plants. With a short growing season it also becomes difficult to yield certain crops that take 90+ days to yield. This makes it especially difficult to get the best results from our garden due to these factors. However, since we get so much moisture during a long winter, we can often make up for this loss of time by having a more intense growing period where our vegetables will grow more rapidly in a shorter amount of time.

Conclusion

There are many advantages and disadvantages to having a long winter. It conclusion it can be great for additional moisture, helping things grow, and minimizing forest fires. However, its disadvantages can be that you have a shorter growing season, and less summer for fun leisure activities. For more farm and ag adventures, check out our friends at Minnesota Farm Living.