Cold Climate Farming?

I'm not a plant specialist but, in this world, some of the colder areas get warm spells (short spring, summer) where the plants go crazy. Without the warmer times, you have places like the Antarctic, where there are no terrestrial plants.

It would probably depend what you mean by 'constant winter'. Does that mean it never gets above freezing? Does it mean that you occasionally get warm spells where it goes all the way up to 40 degrees fahrenheit?

With constant freezing, the only way I can think of to make use of plants would be greenhouses with imported plants, or underwater farming, if you have an underwater environment.

Yup, what Ibender said. It really depends on what you mean by constant winter.

In most tundra environments, even where the snow pack is gone for part of the year and mosses or small scrub bushes grow, agriculture tends to animal husbandry--people herd reindeer, etc., and use their animals as a main source of food, clothing and other needed items.

Crop farming requires a summer season--even if it's the short Alaskan type, where the days are very long. Otherwise an enclosed, heated, lighted space with unfrozen soil is necessary. Some crops can overwinter under the snow, but they will not grow, and they will usually die if exposed to wind, etc.

Edited to add: if your people live near a coastline, they can depend on fishing or whaling--possibly seal hunting at the right times of year.

Seaweed, if the ocean is nearby. Pine nuts from evergreen trees, perhaps, or invent an evergreen tree which has edible needles. Some kinds of cabbage are very cold-hardy, as are some kinds of grasses/grains.

People that live in the Northern areas have mostly lived on fishing/hunting/keeping animals and plants that occur in the wild. Even in the "warm" northern parts (like Finnmark and Lappland) there's not much farming, except for things like barley and potatoes, but not even that will survive in perpetual winter.

There's a farmer in the middle of the Alps in Austria/Europe:

Amid average annual temperatures of a mere 4.2 degrees Celsius (39.5 Fahrenheit), Sepp Holzer grows everything from apricots to eucalyptus, figs to kiwi fruit, peaches to wheat at an altitude of between 1,000 and 1,500 metres (3,300 and 4,900 feet).

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http://www.celsias.com/article/permaculture-miracles-in-the-austrian-mountains/
http://www.krameterhof.at/en/index.php?id=holzersche_permakultur

Taryall mountain farms at 2,700 m (8,800 feet) in central Colorado/US.

I agree; you can get all essential nutrients (proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals) with animal foods only. Infants survive on human breast milk only for more than a year.

Carbohydrates (sugars, starch) are not essential to human life.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Yeah, you can. But it necessitates eating parts of the animals we're not normally happy about eating.

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Including marrow and fat. There's a 1950s paperback novel called Two Against the North, also called Lost in the Barrens, by Farley Mowat. It's quite a detailed (though fictional) survival story, and if you can pick up a copy it'll give you some idea of how your characters could cope with their environment.

boron said:

Carbohydrates (sugars, starch) are not essential to human life.

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No, but some vitamins are. Vitamin C for example, not common in most protein and fat sources.

If they have a short season, they can grow "winter wheat". Plant in fall, sprouts, cryo preserved over winter, finishes growing in spring for an early harvest.

They can always resort to lichen or seaweed if they require vegetable matter. Moving water will also usually have green things in it. Even if they're not near an ocean, a river should suffice.

If it is only cold weather, not constant winter, you can grow cold weather crops like spinach and lettuce and beets and... broccoli? and whatnots. Most these plants need to be started when soil temps are warmer, but can be helped with cold frames or greenhouses.

In any harsh climate you'll want to rely on what is naturally there- like the pine nuts someone suggested, and wild meat. You can't expect agriculture only to sustain you year after year, though a mix of crops and adding livestock and poultry helps. I'm sure people in various cold climates have their own special vegetables that they survive on, in part.

Also: Pick up Four Season Gardening at your local lib.

By building greenhouses?

Darkshore said:

I do need to find a way for liquor to be freely available. Lots of tavern scenes I'd like to have and it just doesn't feel Fantasy to me without a good ole tavern.

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Milk products (I assume that includes reindeer milk) can be used to create fermented drinks like kefir, though grain is used in the process and the alcohol content isn't that high. Also, if you're doing fantasy, you can make up some sort of hardy cow or yak-like beast.

Unless you want your culture completely isolated from outside influences, though, I don't know why they couldn't engage in some kind of trading--by ship, if you don't want them wandering south and overland for some reason.

As far as limiting foreign influence is concerned, Russia and China both have histories of restricting foreign merchants to specific ports and housing enclaves, and discouraging them from mixing with the general population. You could use a similar system as a possible source of tension for characters in your novel.

jennontheisland said:

No, but some vitamins are. Vitamin C for example, not common in most protein and fat sources.

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Animal foods are not good sources of vitamins C, E, K and folate, but they can be found in human breast milk, dairy products and liver.

First, you have to define "cold climate". Now, I live in Alaska, and garden, so I have some background. What works here:

Potatoes
Any cabbage family plant, cabbages, broccoli, brussels sprouts, rutabagas, turnips, kale, mizuna, mustard, bok choi and related varieties. Arugula, sorrel, other greens. Lettuce. Summer squashes.

You can forget tomatoes and peppers, unless you have a heated and lighted greenhouse. Melons are out of the question.

I have a fantasy about growing mangoes and papayas, but it doesn't seem very likely until the global warming really sets in.

caw

Nothing useful grows productively during any winter worthy of the name. A few plants such as parsley will revert to a basal rosette during the winter months, but they need a growing season eventually. A sufficiently low temperature will murder any cabbage variety. There are some edible mosses/lichens that don't die back in the winter, but that's not sustainable. Pine nuts, as mentioned above, are actually a reasonable if time-consuming source of energy, but trees won't produce during the winter.

In other words, you need to have some period of time that isn't winter.

Maybe you could have hot springs or something, to create a small oasis from the cold? Obviously the air would still be cold, but it might at least thaw the ground enough for very limited vegetable growth.

It could create an interesting addition to the novel - control of the springs areas would be really valuable, if the plants are luxury goods.

Otherwise, though, I'd look to the Inuit and other northern people.

One of the polar expeditions grew cress around the steam pipes on their ship.

There are all sorts of vegetables that can grow in cold weather 30-50 degrees F. They can survive light freezes also. These include the cabbage family, turnips, onions, wheat, evergreen trees (their inner bark is a source of vitamin C), and numerous herbs. However, none of these plants will go to seed in such weather, they all go to seed in the spring or summer (so no pine nuts, for example).

I think some of this may also depend on your definition of "winter".

Where I am, winter means -20C as a daily high, overnight lows that include wind chills well into the -40C, and cold dry wind blowing around lots of snow under a glaringly bright sun.

Where I lived before here, winter meant near constant rain, humidity over 80%, temps usually in the single digits C, one dump of very wet snow, and no chance of sun for a good 3 months.

Those are very different conditions that result in very different flora.