If your climate is right, you can keep your garden going all winter with cool-weather crops that can’t take the summer heat: peas, spinach, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, and other salad greens
For years , I had a May to September relationship with my garden . I would plant in springiness , harvest in summer and fall , and do nothing during thewinter monthsbut wait and plan for give again . Last year I decide to keep my garden grow year - round . I was actuate by my honey of broccoli , although I also want to grow othercool - weather condition cropsthat just could n’t take the heat of the hot summertime month : peas , spinach , cauliflower , and cabbage , as well as lettuce and other salad park . I found that , given a well strategy , a wintertime garden is easy to manage than a summer garden , and I feasted on greens through the month when I commonly farseeing for the flavor of fresh harvestedvegetables .
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I am rosy to garden in an area ofnorthern Californiawith an consonant climate . Although we typically have several calendar month of intense wintertime rainwater , it never snows , and only occasionally do we have a down icing . The usual summer crops of maize , tomatoes , peppers , edible bean , squeeze , and melons would never raise during the winter , but many other veggie thrive in the cool , even cold , weather of October to April . grant , my mood makes it fairly easy to grow vegetables year - pear-shaped . Without hot beds and basket house , winter horticulture is unimaginable in area where temperatures routinely drop below 25 ° atomic number 9 . But kitchen gardener in other region can savour a longer grow time of year even if the atomic number 80 dips to freezing level . What it takes is a bit of planning and some useful season extenders , like float row covers , cold frames , or small , charge plate - covered hoop burrow .
The garden at its wintertime peak is abundant . A moolah bed is drape with float row cover to protect it from a halt .
Planning ahead is key
Forethought is essential to getting your wintertime garden off to a adept start . Even though many vegetables will mature and keep well during inhuman weather , most need warm soil temperatures to evolve and grow to a sufficient size of it before cold weather hardening in . Of course , you may start seedling indoors and nurture them there until they need to be hardened off and transpose out . If you desire to start some veggie from cum to transplant later , sow your seeds in August , when land and air temperature are contributing to germination and unattackable outgrowth . Be disposed to transplant by Labor Day , so your seedlings can take advantage of Indian summer ’s balmy atmospheric condition .
There are no strong - and - libertine rules for when specific crops should be planted , but , in universal , the in the beginning the better . Optimally , seed should be started in late summer , but nursery seedlings transplanted in early pin will still do well .
Some plant life , such as onion plant , leeks , and cole crops , take a while to become establish . Plant these early in August . Peas , carrots , common beet , spinach , and lettuce can be direct - seed and planted in succession for an extended harvest , but start planting in early August . embark on pea , carrots , and beets between August 1 and 15 ; lineal seed spinach around August 1 .
All of these escort are applicable to my gardening zone and will change depending on your zona and microclimate . It may make more sentience to find out how many days until a crop can be glean , then count back to estimate when to plant . For instance , carrot can be harvested approximately 60 days after plant . enumeration back from a November harvest to a late August sowing .
When opt variety , you’re able to peck your favorites , as I did , with an eye to stagger harvest appointment . Or , if you have insensate temperatures than my area has , choose insensate - tolerant or short - time of year miscellany . In summation to determining when to protrude specific plants , you also need to have some of your garden beds emptied of the summer crops and the soil prepped and quick for the wintertime crops .
Getting off to a good start
I embed in establish raised beds from which I ’ve already harvest a summer harvest , so I do n’t have to do any more digging or tilling . My beds were previously double dug and well nourish with constitutional subject , so after removing the sure-enough vegetation , I just add together a few inch of compost and other soil amendments as needed to supply the incoming plants with fresh nutrients . Planting year - round requires snug attention to ground fertility , or your garden wo n’t wave .
I use of age compost , which has had clip for excess salts that might harm crop to have leached out . My choice of amendment is mushroom compost , a medium used to grow mushroom . It arrest chaff , horse manure , poulet manure , gypsum , peat moss , birdlime , molasses , and cottonseed repast , to which I sometimes tote up grape pumice and rice hull .
If you do n’t have raised beds , dirt preparation is even more authoritative , to create good drain . sound wintertime rainfall make good drainage all important in my garden .
You ’ll probably need much less space for your winter garden than for your summer garden , since wintertime vegetables are more compendious than tomatoes , melons , and squash . I expend three resurrect beds , approximately 4 animal foot by 20 animal foot each , along with a 20 - foot wrangle for snap pea plant and snow pea , which provides syndicate and friends with sizeable green goods all winter prospicient . I advocate planting one layer in stem crop ( carrots , beets , and onions ) , another in cole crops ( Brassica oleracea italica , cabbage , cauliflower , Brussels sprouts , and bok choy ) , and another in salad greens ( kale , mesclun , Spinacia oleracea , and chard ) . I plant winter crops closer together to prevent erosion from knockout wintertime rainfall .
Plant at the right time
Since most veggie come in many varieties , with different maturation rates , you’re able to plant your winter garden all at once and still be capable to harvest over several months . For instance , flora 6 or 12 plants of three different kinds of broccoli and cabbage , with maturity date dates of 60 , 80 , and 100 days . For beetroot , onion , and carrots , you could plant the same assortment of each ( preferably one suited for over - wintering ) and harvest them at different stages of growth , as ask . Chard , spinach , lettuce , and salad putting green are also suited for an lengthy harvest home if you take just the outer farewell and let the plant proceed to develop . Since cabbage and most greens tend to ripen quickly and germinate well in nerveless temperature — they are the exception to the rule that warm conditions are call for for sprouting — you’re able to sow in or plant out new transplants every three or four hebdomad throughout the winter . However , since lettuce wo n’t bolt in cold atmospheric condition , you might opt for the easy way : Plant everything at once , and be done with it .
Plant bare beds with a cover crop
My wintertime garden was about a fourth part the size of my summertime garden , and I wanted to put that undefended blank space to honest use . So I planted agreen manure cropbetween the winter beds and the border fences and in a few of the beds I was n’t using . I used a mix from my local nursery consist of 50 percent gong beans , 30 per centum Austrian field of battle peas , and 20 pct common vetch . All are legumes , which fix atmospheric nitrogen into the ground and tote up constitutional affair when turned under . The plain pea cover the undercoat , while the vetch climb up the taller bell beans .
For your own garden , you ’ll desire to seek local advice about the best blanket craw or mixes for your field . Till or rake open area and empty bed to about 2 inches deep , then broadcast the cum and glance over in to cover . There ’s no motive to water if you implant just before the fall rains . Three to four weeks before you plant your summertime crop , chop up down the cover crop , either with a machete or a mulching mower , and till it into the soil . This will allow the constituent matter to get down rotting and releasing nutrient for your crop . Non - legume such as barleycorn , rye , and oats can also be planted as a wintertime covering craw ; they wo n’t furnish as much nitrogen as legumes , but they will add large amounts of constitutive issue and help gag out locoweed .
Seeing the garden through
maintain my wintertime garden was remarkably easy . I had to irrigate regularly during August , September , and October , but once temperature cool off and the wintertime rainfall came , I did n’t H2O at all . Weeds do n’t maturate fast in fall and wintertime ; most of my skunk were wild grasses , which I just cut short with grass clippers . It ’s actually best not to pull sens , because when the soil is sloughy , you risk harming your vegetable ’ beginning systems . And the radical of the weeds keep the soil in your erect beds from washing away .
worm are n’t generally a problem in colder weather , and althoughsnails and slugscan proliferate , I had enough vegetables planted in my garden to assure there was plenty bequeath over for me . All of my crops were dauntless enough to hold out Robert Lee Frost , except for my cabbage and salad greens . Whenever Robert Lee Frost was forecast , I covered that bed with a floating row cover .
In other part of the nation , atmospheric condition may be capricious . Have be adrift row covers ready to protect plant from sudden freezes . Quick changes in temperature are more damaging to plants than gradual modification .
In retrospect , my wintertime garden study much less travail than my usual summer garden . Once implant , my vegetables seemed to farm well by themselves with little intervention . The major crusade on my part was venturing out into the rainwater to reap whatever I felt like eating or cooking . But it was well deserving it : invigorated steam Brassica oleracea italica and Brassica oleracea botrytis , homemade slaw , sweet garden pea plant , borscht made with my own cabbage , common beet , and carrots , and of course of action , uncomparable salad . If only I could develop tomatoes in winter to top them off .
— A former fairish - weather nurseryman , James Kerr now gardens twelvemonth - circle in Healdsburg , California .
October 2000
pic except where noted : Marc Vassallo .
FromKitchen Gardening # 29
Get more info on growing cool-season vegetables:
•Spinach•Mâche•Beets•Greens•Cabbage•Carrots•Onions•Kale•Extending the Salad Season•Cold Frame Gardening
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The sweet rewards of winter gardening are worth the effort of stretching the season.
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In the author’s northern California garden, drip irrigation keeps the warm season vegetables growing through the hot, dry fall, and row covers and cold-hardy crops keep it abundant through the winters (below), which are rainy and cool but not prohibitively cold. The sweet rewards of winter gardening are worth the effort of stretching the season.Photo: Ruth Lively.
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Prepping the soil and setting up structures should be done before winter. In this case, the winter pea crop needed to be planted in the fall, when warmer soil conditions favored germination.Photo: Ruth Lively.
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In mid-fall, the garden shows promise for winter broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce, while the summer’s strawberry plants and lingering tomatoes (trellised, in the background) grow on.Photo: Ruth Lively.
In climates such as the author’s, in northern California, lettuce seedlings can be planted throughout the winter, providing a staggered harvest.
Cole crops and greens (above) are the stars of the winter garden. These crops grow to maturity in cool weather without bolting.
A handful of cover crop seeds (left) is an investment in your garden’s future. A cover crop (right) minimizes soil erosion and becomes a source of nitrogen for the beds come spring.Left photo: Ruth Lively.
The garden at its winter peak is abundant. A lettuce bed is draped with floating row cover to protect it from a freeze.
