Of course going into winter gardening, it is a good idea to keep in mind that it is a bit more of a gamble than summer gardening. Things might work in a mild winter, but not a more harsh one. It might rain so much that your plants drown. Or you could have a really cold night extremely early that kills everything unexpectedly.

If you fail one year, don’t let it discourage you. Try again. If it’s something you have never done before, there is definitely a learning curve. It took us 5 years of making mistakes before we had a year that we timed everything right to succeed with all the crops we planted in the same year.

As we go through this list, please keep in mind that the temperatures a particular plant is hardy to is a generality. It can be both variety and location/protection dependent. A good example of this is cabbage. Some varieties will be damaged at about 30 degrees, and others are extremely hardy and will take temperatures down to 10 degrees even without protection.

So when you are selecting seeds to buy for your winter garden, do a bit of research on which varieties are hardiest first.

Now lets get on to the plants!

10. Brassicas

This isn’t just one plant, but rather a family of plants. When we say brassicas, we are referring to plants like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussel sprouts. One of the reason that we love these plants so much is that they are a highly versatile group of plants.

They love cold weather and will tolerate being frosted. In our experience, cauliflower is the most tender. Cauliflower will get damaged by temperatures down in the mid 20’s. You can protect them a little bit by thoroughly wrapping all of their leaves around the head, but it is a good idea to eat your cauliflower first.

Next up is broccoli. Broccoli is more hardy in our experience and will easily take temperatures in the mid 20’s with no damage. Once you get down to the low 20’s you will likely start to see some damage. The plants are much hardier than the florets, so even if you harvest your broccoli to avoid low temperatures, don’t remove the plants. They might still produce side shoots for you. Our broccoli will often keep on producing right through December despite nightly frosts.

After that is brussel sprouts and cabbage. They seem to be more hardy than broccoli, probably simply because with both you are harvesting leaves. They will take temperatures down into the teens. Brussel sprouts actually tastes better after they have been frosted.

Keep in mind when looking at cabbage in particular that some varieties are not very hardy and others are extremely hardy. January cabbages–varieties like Deadon–are some of the more hardy varieties. Also, if cabbage or brussel sprouts are cold damaged, you may be able to remove the outer leaves and still harvest a perfectly good inner head/sprout. Check them before you throw them out.

9. Parsnips

Parsnips are a less common vegetable. If you have never eaten them, but enjoy trying new vegetables, we would encourage you to try them. They have a unique taste all their own. Best of all they are extremely cold hardy. We used to plant them in our Vermont garden and harvest them early the following spring once the snow had melted enough to find them. So if you live in a cold climate they very well could be the first crop you harvest in the spring!

Parsnips are in the same family as carrots, and look like a long white carrot with more coarse leaves. They can be a bit finicky to get to germinate. This is because they germinate slowly. The trick is to keep them evenly moist without letting them dry out even once before they have sprouted. Similarly, they also take a long time to mature. They need a long season, so you can plant them in the spring and then just let them grow all year. They are best eaten after they have been frosted. Either harvest them late fall or in the spring.

8. Turnips

Turnips are another winter vegetable that can serve two purposes. Plus they are remarkably cold hardy. Turnips tops will take down to about 10 degrees. If you heavily mulch or pile up extra dirt around the roots once the weather gets cold they will likely take even colder temperatures. Additionally, turnips store very well once harvested, so are something you can likely enjoy for the entire winter.

We usually think of eating the white bulbous root when we think about eating turnips. However, turnip greens can be eaten raw in salads, or as a cooked vegetable. Just like the turnip roots, they have a tangy spicy flavor to them. They hold up well to cooking, so can make excellent additions to things like winter soups.

7. Carrots

You cannot grow turnips without growing carrots. Well actually you can, but a 50/50 mixture of mashed carrots and turnips is one of our favorite winter vegetables. And nothing beats the flavor of a winter harvested home grown carrot, or the sweet and tangy flavor of a turnip carrot mash seasoned with butter, salt and pepper. Carrots are of course very versatile and loved by most everyone. Those that are harvested after frost will be extremely sweet.

Carrots are once again quite winter hardy, particularly since they are under ground. With a good layer of mulch, you will likely be able to harvest carrots until the ground has frozen solid around them. Like turnips, they will also survive down to 10 degrees or more if well protected. If you have full sized mature carrots that no longer need their tops, you can set a straw bale on top of them to help keep the ground soft enough to dig them for longer into the winter.

6. Spinach

One of the hardiest greens you can grow. It is one of the few leafy greens that Cornell University has good success growing and harvesting in the dead of winter. If spinach gets its leaves damaged but the plant isn’t killed, or it gets buried in snow, most likely it will pick up where it left off come spring. Often you will be able to harvest overwintered spinach very, very early in the spring. This is one of the vegetables we save to harvest last in our winter garden. We know that it will still be there waiting for us all winter. We eat the more cold sensitive greens first.

A note about spinach varieties. It seem that generally speaking, the savoy (crinkly leaves) varieties are more cold hardy than the smooth leaf varieties. We also prefer to use slower to bolt varieties so that we can harvest later into the spring.

5. Mustard Greens

Mustard greens come in a broad array of different varieties ranging from very spicy to very mild. They are one of the more tender greens and will likely be damaged by mid to low 20’s weather. One of the reasons we love them is that they are so quick to mature, and they are often one of the first greens we are eating in both the fall and spring. Additionally, they are one of the greens that we can plant in spring and harvest well into the summer.

Our two favorite varieties of mustard greens are Tendergreen for the fall, and Savanna Hybrid for the spring. Tendergreen matures very quickly and has extremely mild, tender leaves. We find that it makes an excellent lettuce substitute though it can also be cooked.

4. Perennial Leeks

Perennial leeks are similar to the leeks you might get at a grocery store, but they are smaller, and they multiply to make clumps of small leeks. One of the main reasons we love perennial leeks is that they are very low maintenance. They are very hardy, tender, delicious, and have typical leek flavor. Since they are so plentiful and easy to grow, we even substitute them for onions sometimes.

As long as you do not harvest all of them, you will only need to plant them once. We like to harvest the largest ones and either leave or replant the smaller ones to allow them to keep growing. In our climate they will go dormant in the summer and reappear in the fall. In cooler climates they might stay green all summer meaning you might be able to harvest them almost year round.

3. Swiss Chard

Swiss chard is a vegetable that often shows up in baby green mixes, but isn’t featured very often at mature size which is a pity. The larger leaves make a good substitute for spinach. It can be used as a salad green at both baby and mature, or the larger leaves may be cooked. In our opinion, what sets Swiss chard apart is its thick fleshy stems. Don’t trim the leaves off and throw away the stems. Cook the stems up alongside the leaves, they are delicious! Fordhook Giant is our favorite cooking chard, and rainbow chard is what we prefer for salads.

We find that the white Swiss chard (Fordhook Giant) is more cold hardy (low 20’s) than the rainbow chard (Bright Lights) we also grow (mid 20’s). We also find that the younger plants are more cold hardy than very large plants. In our garden, usually the leaves get damaged, but the smaller plants survive the winter and start producing new leaves in the spring for an early harvest. We typically don’t plant chard in the spring, we just harvest our overwintered plants until they start to bolt.

Chard is also quite heat tolerant. We have been spring planting the variety Perpetual Chard (Perpetual Spinach). This variety is extremely heat and drought tolerant giving us salad greens all summer. It is also purported to be extremely cold hardy, possibly overwintering down to zone 5 with protection. However we have only grown it as a summer green so have not put that to the test.

2. Collards

Now to be fair, collards are technically a Brassica and should have been included with that group of plants when we talked about them above. However, we wanted to single out collards as we feel they are under appreciated by gardeners in many parts of the country.

In addition to being cooked to mush with bacon in the traditional southern dish, collards are extremely versatile. They can be used in pretty much any way that you would use cabbage. If you have never eaten collards, they taste similar to cabbage or a broccoli leaf.

We find them to be easier to grow, much more productive, and more cold hardy than most cabbage varieties we have tried. They grow new leaves, and we can continually harvest them all fall, winter, and until they bolt in the spring. Some varieties are hardier than others so it once again pays to do your homework when selecting varieties. We have been growing Top Bunch and find that they typically come through our winter undamaged (15 degree lows). This is unprotected, so they would likely survive a good bit colder with protection.

1. Bulls Blood Beets

We say Bulls Blood Beets instead of just beets, because we find this particular variety to be one of the most productive and easiest managed vegetables in our garden. Not to mention, it is one of the most beautiful greens we grow. We prefer Bulls Blood to other beet varieties, because it is multi-purpose.

Unlike many beets whose leaves get tough quickly, the greens are tender and delicious at any size or growth stage. They are cold hardy and also heat tolerant, so from one planting you will be picking vegetables for months. Best of all, if you don’t over harvest the leaves, and thin the plants when they are young, at the end of the season you will also be able to harvest delicious beets.

Beet greens are similar to Swiss chard for hardiness and the leaves will likely be damage by temperatures in the low 20’s. If you have thoroughly mulched the roots, they can take colder temperatures. We prefer to eat the greens until the tops get damaged. Then we harvest and eat the roots. We repeat the same process in the spring. We eat greens all spring, and then the beet roots mid summer when the greens succumb to leaf spot.

Our Runner Up

We wanted to mention lettuce as it is something everyone is very familiar with. It is often featured on cold hardy vegetable lists. It is quite cold hardy, however, it does not make our list. This is because, lettuce is a vegetable that we rarely grow here. We have found that it is more finicky and difficult to grow than most other greens. It is prone to rotting, bolting and getting bitter. It requires multiple succession plantings, and can be tricky for us to germinate in our hot sandy soil.

We think that there are so many other better, under appreciated greens out there that lettuce isn’t worth growing. All the greens on this list are tastier and work so much harder for us than lettuce does. We do very little succession planting, because these other greens can be harvested over an extended period without loss of quality. Plus many of them are much more heat tolerant, and are equally if not more cold tolerant. So if you have never grown any of them we would encourage you to give some of them a try this year!

If you would like more gardening tips, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post The 10 Best Winter Vegetables You Should Be Growing first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

With some practice and the right techniques, in many parts of this country, you should be able to harvest vegetables almost year round. Even in cold northern climates, you can harvest late into the fall if the snowfall allows it. Plus there are still some vegetables like parsnips and spinach that will likely over winter to give you an early spring crop.

Using these same tools and techniques, you can extend your season both in the spring and in the fall. You might be surprised to find that some plants perform better than expected outside of what you might think of as their normal season.

Warm season vs. cool season crops

When we talk about vegetables and season extension, we need to understand that there are both warm season and cool season crops. Cool season crops will allow you to extend your growing season into the cold weather of fall and winter. These include plants like peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, turnips, kale, carrots, beets, etc. These are most anything that you would plant in the early spring. Some of these plants can take temperatures down to 10 degrees or below!

We can also extend the season for warm season crops such as tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. This can allow you to get a crop earlier than you normally would. It can also help you harvest your warm season crop later than you otherwise would be able to. This can be very advantageous for northern growers who have crops like tomatoes.

Planting crops for winter gardens

If you wish to season extend into the late fall and winter, plant cold season crops. In most areas you will need to plant these crops some time in mid to late summer. Many of these crops will hold long into the winter. However, they need to be mature size before it gets really cold. They will not do much growing in the very cold weather.

To determine when to plant, look at the seed packet for the ‘days to maturity’. Then check when your average first frost date is. Count backwards from your first frost date the number of days to maturity. Plant your cool crop seeds then.

A quick tip for southern growers. Shade cloth covering your winter garden area can help you to get your cool season crops started more easily. In many areas getting seeds to germinate and transplants to thrive in hot soil and high late summer temperatures may be one of the biggest winter gardening hurdles to overcome.

A quick tip for northern gardeners trying to extend their season earlier in the spring. Lay black plastic on the ground a couple weeks prior to planting. It will absorb the sun and help to heat up the soil faster.

One key to winter gardening is wind protection

Protecting your plants from wind damage is one of the most important aspects of season extension. It is not only low temperatures that kill plants. Desiccation can also kill a plant quickly.

When the soil/plant is frozen, the plant’s roots cannot take up water. However, the top of the plant is still capable of losing water. So if a harsh wind is drying out the top of the plant when the ground is frozen, the plant can sustain a lot of damage that it would not have realized from cold alone. Thus the simple act of blocking the wind can make a huge difference.

Now let’s get on to those tips!

Tip 1-Nature’s season extension gift

Wind protection can come in many forms. Sometimes you may have something as simple as a wall or fence that blocks your winter winds creating a warm microclimate behind it. If you have warm microclimates like a sheltered south wall, take advantage of it, and plant some of your winter vegetables there.

In addition to looking for microclimates in your yard, you can also use mulch to help protect your plants from cold weather. Fluffy things like leaves and straw make perfect mulch for protecting cold crops like root vegetables.

Mounding up leaves or straw over your vegetables before cold nights will protect them from the wind and cold temperatures. If you have crops like beets and carrots, a heavy layer of mulch can also help keep the soil from freezing around them. This will both protecting your crop, and allow you to easily harvest the roots later into the winter.

If you want to get more serious about season extension read on!

Tip 2-The Cadillac of season extension is a greenhouse

A heated greenhouse is the ultimate season extension dream that many gardeners have. Of course not every gardener can justify the expense to install and operate a greenhouse. And you don’t have to. Some home gardeners have a small ‘starter” greenhouse with minimal heat. This can be a good place to plant your fall crops without the cost of a large facility. Alternately you could use containers and a 3- season porch to extend your crop season.

If a greenhouse is not an option, don’t’ despair. There are plenty of other options to effectively extend your season for significantly less investment.

Tip 3-The high tunnel

The next best option is a high tunnel. A high tunnel is essentially just an unheated greenhouse. It is usually just a single layer of clear plastic over frames. No heat, no ventilation, many times not even doors. High tunnels are advantageous because they can be installed very inexpensively compared to a greenhouse but come with many similar benefits.

The frames can be installed in a permanent location, or you can install a temporary ‘caterpillar tunnel’. A huge plus for high tunnels is that you can stand up and walk/work inside them easily. An advantage high tunnels actually have over greenhouses is that you can remove the plastic covering in the summer months allowing you to utilize the space when it would otherwise be way to hot to grow inside it.

Inside a high tunnel, the night temperatures will not dip as low as outside. They will rise much higher during the day. Temperatures will rise much earlier in the morning and cool more slowly in the evening. As soon as the sun starts to come up up your high tunnel will be warm inside even on the coldest of winter days. Also, high tunnels will provide your plants excellent protection from wind damage.

Tip 4-Added benefits of an insulated high tunnel

We have found that our unheated high tunnel greenhouse will stay above freezing until the night time temperatures dip down below 20 degrees. Our high tunnel has an insulated cover on it and solid ends, so it provides more protection than a high tunnel with a single layer of plastic. Even without heat, it provides protection that is quite sufficient to extend the season. Rarely does anything except the most frost tender of plants sustain any damage even on the coldest nights of our winter. This insulated cover takes our high tunnel to the next level of protection.

An insulated cover of course comes with a significantly increased price tag. A viable, and very inexpensive alternative to spending thousands on an insulated cover such as Solawrap is to use 2 sheets of inflated plastic film. The inflated air layer creates a layer of insulation.

Whichever cover you choose to put over your high tunnel you can also utilize other frost protection strategies inside the high tunnel.

Tip 5-Low tunnels are very useful

If you do not have the space or desire to use large high tunnels, you can use low tunnels to do many of the same things. Low tunnels are just miniature high tunnels that sit directly over your crops. You can easily install a low tunnel over any crop in your garden. This can be done in a few minutes time.

Low tunnels are so useful, that many growers in more northern climates often use low tunnels inside high tunnels to add another layer of protection to their crops. Using a low tunnel with a heavy row cover inside a high tunnel can give you 5-10 degrees of extra frost protection beyond what the high tunnel is already providing.

It is worth investing in frames of an appropriate size to cover your crop to make low tunnels. It has been found that using a frame to support your frost protection works better than using a ‘floating row cover’ that is just loosely draped over the plants. You don’t want the frost protection touching the leaves of your plants. If it does the part of the plant touching the row cover is more likely to get frost damaged.

Select the appropriate cover for your low tunnels

There are a few different options when you are considering covers for your low tunnels. You can use sheet plastic, or you can use a frost protection row cover cloth. For maximum frost protection, you may wish to combine two together.

Plastic will trap more heat and get warmer during the day than a fabric cover will. It will not allow rain through keeping your crop dryer, but may require you to water it mid winter. A downside to plastic is that if you have a very warm day (like 50 degrees) you will probably need to open your low tunnel during the day to allow some of the heat to vent.

Conversely, a thick cloth row cover cloth will provide more frost protection than plastic will. It will also allow water and wind through, so it will not protect your plants from wind desiccation, nor will it allow you to control the amount of water the plants are receiving.

As you might imagine under many circumstances a combination of the two may prove the best option. A fabric row cover that you can add plastic over as the temperatures drop will provide you the most versatile frost protection. If you live in the south where day time temperatures mid winter are often 50 degrees, you may wish to avoid using plastic. However, if you live in a more northern climate, you will definitely want to use both plastic and a fabric cover to maximize both your night time frost protection, and also your daytime growing temperatures.

Tip 6-Cold frames are similar to low tunnels

If you wish to have something a little more permanent than a low tunnel, you can use cold frames. They are often constructed using recycled materials. Cold frames are simply a box with a clear roof angled to face the south. Often times they are wooden boxes with old windows set over the top as a roof. They can also be made out of straw bales. They can be constructed as simply or elaborately as you choose.

The drawback is that they are not as easy to store or move as a low tunnel. Working with old windows can also be a safety liability due to the possibility of broken glass. If you make cold frames using old windows, please be sure to secure the windows thoroughly so that they do not get damaged by the wind.

One last tip…Tip 7-Recycle Christmas decorations

Yes, Christmas lights can be used for season extension. So, search your attic and garage and recycle those Christmas lights. Now, when we say Christmas lights we are not referring to LED ones, but rather the incandescent ones that give off heat.

Insert short stakes inside the low tunnel and run a string of Christmas lights above your plants between the stakes. Be careful! Do not allow the lights to touch the plants or the low tunnel cover. The low tunnel will trap quite a lot of heat from the lights inside it.

This is particularly true if you have both plastic and a heavy frost protection row cover over your crop. A temporary heat source such as this can be very useful if you have a couple unusually cold nights followed by more normal warmer weather. For example, a late frost after setting out your tomato plants. However it can also be just enough heat mid winter to prevent getting frost damage on cold crops as well.

We hope that no matter your climate, this gives you some inspiration to try winter gardening this fall! Next time we are going to discuss some of our favorite cold season crops, and just how cold hardy they actually are.

If you’d like to get more gardening tips, don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Grow Veggies All Winter–Season Extension Tips first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

You can of course use high tunnels and other season extension tools to help extend your tomato harvest past your first frost. However, tomatoes are quite intolerant of cold temperatures, so this will only get you so far. At some point they will get frozen or stop growing and ripening because the temperatures are too low.

So what other options do you have if you don’t have a heated greenhouse?

Often times we need to look past modern plant varieties to find ones that fill unusual purposes. And as you likely know heirloom tomatoes are an extremely diverse group of plants. Heirloom tomatoes come in every shape, size and color you can imagine. They also happen to come in storage varieties.

As it would turn out, our ancestors also wanted juicy tomatoes in the middle of the winter. So before greenhouse tomatoes became commonplace, they developed varieties of tomatoes that would store long term and ripen slowly. These storage varieties can extend your tomato season for a couple months or more into the winter.

Storage tomatoes are also called longkeeper tomatoes. You will probably have to work a little harder to find seeds than you would with other heirloom varieties. However, they are several seed companies that do offer them. Some of the more common varieties are Longkeeper, Reverend Marrows Long Keeper, and Garden Peach.

How to grow storage tomatoes

The culture of winter tomatoes is the same as any other tomato plant. They require the same growing conditions and care. However, you need to time planting of them differently. You will likely need to plant them later than your summer tomatoes. With storage tomatoes, you don’t want them to ripen in your garden. You need to adjust the planting so that instead of ripening on the vine, they are at what is called mature green before your first frost.

Mature green tomatoes are simply ones that have reached full size. They start to turn from the very dark green to a slightly lighter green, and a few of them may be starting to blush with color. You want to pick mature green tomatoes as they will store the longest. At this phase they are mature enough to ripen off the vine.

To time planting, you need to look up your first frost date. Then count backwards that number of days. You will also need to add some extra days as the plants will grow more slowly as the weather cools in the fall. Err on the side of planting them too early rather than too late.

It is also important to trellis up your plants to make sure that your tomatoes are not touching the ground. Any tomatoes that are touching the soil will rot in storage and should be discarded. You should try to protect them from any kind of insect damage or mechanical damage for the same reason.

Before your first frost

Once your tomatoes are mature green and it is getting close to frost, it is time to harvest your crop. If you are going to get a frost and are not sure if the tomatoes are mature green, harvest them anyways. They may still ripen.

You need to harvest your tomatoes very carefully. You do not want to damage or bruise them in any way. Use a pair of pruners or scissors to carefully snip each tomato off leaving a bit of stem. You do not want to rip the tomato off the stem as it will damage the top of the tomato making it more prone to rotting. Once you have snipped your tomatoes carefully place them into a basket making sure the stems don’t stab through the skin of other tomatoes.

Packing your tomatoes for storage

After you have picked your tomatoes you need to bring them inside and pack them for storage. Depending on how much space you have, there are a couple different options. You can lay the tomatoes out in single layer on a sheet of newspaper. Alternatively, you can wrap each tomato in an individual piece of packing paper and nestle them into a box in layers.

Regardless of how you choose to store them it is important to keep in mind that you should not allow the tomatoes to touch as it makes them more prone to rotting. It is also important to check on your tomatoes regularly. Remove any that are ripe or any that appear to be starting to rot. Not every tomato will ripen, and you will need to dispose of ones that start to rot before they can contaminate your other tomatoes.

It is best to keep your tomatoes in a cool but not cold area. Periodically remove the ones that are the most ripe looking and move them to your warm kitchen counter to finish ripening. At this point you can use them as you would any other tomato.

In our experience storage tomatoes are not as good as vine ripened summer tomatoes. They are however significantly better than many of the grocery store tomatoes. Plus you have the pleasure of knowing that the tomato gracing your plate in January is one ‘fresh’ from your own garden.

So when you are planning your garden for next year, plan space for some winter storage tomatoes!

If you would like to learn about more unique plants or get more gardening tips, please sign up for our newsletter!

The post Storage Tomatoes: The New Tomato You Should Grow Next Year first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

As you might imagine winter gardening can be a boon to small homesteads committed to eating seasonally and producing their own food as it provides fresh vegetables during the winter. And anyone who has been exclusively eating canned and frozen vegetables for a length of time probably knows how delightful a reprieve a fresh salad is. Plus, harvesting more vegetables for a longer season means less time and space devoted to storage.

Unfortunately, winter gardening can be a bit more tricky to succeed at than summer gardening, and it might take some trial and error on your part to get the timing just right for everything. Don’t let that discourage you from trying some of the hardiest vegetables though. Even if you aren’t interested in going out to harvest vegetables in a January blizzard, this article and our season extension tips in our next post can help you to extend your harvest season in both the spring and the fall.

What are winter vegetables anyway?

Winter vegetables include most things that you plant in early spring. They are all the cold crops, and when acclimated many of them are surprisingly hardy. Cold crops include brassicas such as broccoli, cabbage, and kale, root crops like carrots, beets, and turnips, and many greens. We will be sharing a list of 10 of our favorite winter vegetables in a few weeks.

The first thing you need to do when planning a winter garden is to determine when your average first frost date is.

Your first and last frost dates can easily be determined from a quick internet search of your zipode and ‘first frost date’. The reason you need to know your first frost date is that you will need to count backwards from it to determine when to plant seeds. Once you have collected up your cold crop seeds to plant, you need to look at the seed packets to find the days to maturity. This is sometimes also listed as days to harvest.

You will need to count backwards from your first frost date the number of days the seed packet says to get an idea of when to plant. The idea is to get your crop to full size or almost full size before it gets too cold. Many cold weather vegetables won’t grow in extremely cold weather, but they will stay alive waiting to be harvested.

Now, the days to maturity is an estimate based on growing degree days not calendar days, and the planting date you select might need some adjustment to get just right. Because things grow slower as the weather cools, you may need to add a week or two to the number of days to maturity. It is a good idea to keep track of when you planted various seeds, so that next year you can reevaluate and adjust your planting date if needed.

Make sure to check your seed packets and make your plans for your winter garden early.

You might be surprised at how early in the summer you need to start planting seeds for your fall garden! For example, our average first frost date here in zone 8 Virginia is November 5^th. We usually start our brassica seeds at the beginning of July. That way they are ready to harvest as the weather gets cooler, and we can harvest our frost tender cauliflower before the first frost. If/when I lived in Vermont, I would plant my Brussel sprouts and cabbages first thing in the spring for fall harvest.

One of the challenges you might run into with summer planting cool season crops is getting seeds to germinate.

Soil temperatures in mid summer are often higher than optimum for cool season crops. You may also have trouble keeping the soil evenly moist for germination under the hot summer sun. One of the ways you can help to get around that problem is to germinate seeds indoors and then transplant the sprouts out.

For vegetables such as root crops that are ideally not transplanted, you can shade the soil. This can be accomplished through the use of shade cloth, burlap, or agribon type insect barrier. We personally like to use agribon low tunnels for this purpose as pest pressure is often high on our fall planted crops and the row cover serves two purposes. We can water through the row cover, and it helps conserve soil moisture without reducing light to the seedlings which can be a problem with both shade cloth and burlap. If the seedlings are too shaded, they will be weak and easily damaged or killed by the sun when you remove their covering. It is also important when caring for your fall crops in the summer heat to keep them well watered to minimize their stress. Don’t be discouraged if they seem to be growing slowly. You will likely see their growth rate rapidly increase as the weather begins to cool.

If you live in zone 7 or colder, your winter vegetables will benefit from some sort of winter protection.

Zone 8 and above you can probably get away without it, but if you live in an area prone to a lot of wind or rain you may still wish to protect your plants.

There are 2 things in addition to low temperatures that can kill your winter vegetables. They are excess moisture which can cause them to rot and wind. A lot of times, it is not cold temperatures that damage or kill plants, but desiccation. Frozen soil is the equivalent of being in a drought because the plants cannot take up water, but their aerial parts can still lose water. Wind protection can make a huge difference to the longevity of your winter vegetables.

Low tunnels with a layer of plastic and or a frost blanket are the simplest, most inexpensive way to protect your vegetables. We will be discussing various season extension tips in our next post. For now though, a frost blanket will provide better temperature protection, but will not protect from wind or excess soil moisture like plastic does. Thus, we suggest gardeners in most climates utilize a combination of both to get the most benefits.

Once your vegetables are grown to mature size, they will hold in the garden and can be harvested as needed.

For leafy greens, be sure to harvest them when the temperatures are above freezing. For root crops you need to keep the soil from freezing around them to be able to harvest them. Placing a straw bale or big pile of leaves over them can help to keep the soil soft long into the fall.

At some point in colder climates your winter vegetables will probably get winter killed or damaged enough to no longer be palatable. Some of these cold damaged vegetables such as spinach are extremely hardy and will begin growing again as it starts to warm in the spring providing you with an extra early crop. We would like to note here that while it might seem counterintuitive, fluffy snow (not packed show though) is an excellent insulator. A layer of snow can actually help to protect your winter vegetables from the most extreme cold allowing them to survive and regrow in the spring.

So how hardy is cold hardy for winter vegetables?

It varies depending on the plant, and also on how well acclimated to the cold they are. It can also depend on how long the temperatures are low. An extended very cold period is more damaging than a brief dip. The below list of vegetables consistently survives through our mild winters. The temperatures here rarely if ever dip below 15 degrees, and we cover the garden with plastic if it is forecasted to be below 20 degrees or exceptionally windy. Some of these vegetables are much hardier than 15 degrees, some will eventually winter kill at these temperatures. However, even if they do end up dying mid winter they will still allow harvest deep into the fall in colder climates.

Beets, beet greens—the beets themselves are much hardier than the greens.

Carrots, turnips, mustard greens, Swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, parsnips, kale. Lettuce and spinach are more hardy than Swiss chard and many mustard greens.

Brassicas such as Brussel sprouts, collards, cabbage. Not all cabbage is equal. Seek out a cold hardy one such as a January King type. Broccoli plants will survive, however the florets will be cold damaged when temperatures start to get into the mid to low 20’s (or warmer if it is an early frost and they aren’t cold acclimated). If the plants survive undamaged, they will often go on to make new florets as the weather warms again. Please note that unlike most brassicas, cauliflower is NOT cold hardy. It will be damaged by freezing temperatures and should be harvested before your first frost.

We hope that this article encourages you to consider planting a winter garden. For those of you in colder climates interested in delving into winter gardening in more details, Cornell University has an excellent website devoted to the production of cold crops in high tunnels. In our next article we will discuss season extension tips to help you get the most out of your winter garden!

If you would like to make sure you don’t miss out on that article, please sign up for our newsletter.

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Get Started Winter Gardening first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.