Veg best strategies for growing food in winter.

jward

jward

passin' thru
Too much to c/p but some may find it worth a click or three...

Mother Earth News Magazine
@MotherEarthNews
16m

We sent a winter gardening survey to thousands of our readers all over the United States and beyond, asking growers about their best strategies for growing food in winter. Check out some responses organized by Growing Zone:
https://motherearthnews.com/organic-garden
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1614405004869177347
View: https://twitter.com/MotherEarthNews/status/1614405004869177347?s=20
 
dioptase

dioptase

Veteran Member
I'm currently reading this book Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long, 2nd Edition - Kindle edition by Colman, Eliot , Damrosch, Barbara, Bray, Kathy, Bray, Kathy, Damrosch, Barbara. Crafts, Hobbies & Home Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. where the author addresses this exact issue.

What it all boils down to, is that you start your winter veggies in the late summer or early fall, and then transplant them out. (Maybe some can be direct sown, but I've never had luck with direct sowing things like beets or lettuce.) You then let the plants grow in place through the winter, giving them protection as needed. For the warmer zones (like we are in zone 9), you don't need cold frames, otherwise you do.

Basically your sown/planted crops actively grow until the "solar winter" (as opposed to the "temperature winter" - he made up these terms) sets in. Once the sunlight decreases enough ("solar winter", which is well before the winter solstice), the winter veggies that you planted stop actively growing, but they persist through the winter and you can harvest all through the winter.

So winter (for the most part) is not about planting, but about harvesting.

At some point, as the hours of daylight increase, the late summer/fall started veggies start actively growing again (well before the "temperature" spring), and somewhere along the line (maybe then, not sure) you can re-sow in the cold frames (or re-transplant) to continue the harvest.

He has a long list of veggies which are suitable for winter harvesting, and gives dates when you should start the seeds , and addresses things like crop rotation between the families of these veggies. (Who knew that arugula was in the cabbage family? I didn't!) To make it plain, this type of gardening is about seasonally appropriate veggies - you are NOT going to be growing tomatoes or peppers over the winter.

He also has info on building and managing cold frames (when and how much to ventilate or irrigate).

I'm obviously still reading the book, but it's full of good stuff (and has interesting stories/lessons learned from a trip to France to observe their winter gardens).
 
B

Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I built a PVC pipe frame over one of my raised beds, and I put row cover over it as needed, weighting it down with metal fence posts.

I plant lettuce, broccoli, spinach, greens and cabbage in mid August for direct sow, or very early September for transplants.

When it gets freezing, I pull the row cover over the raised bed and fasten it down with metal fence posts (I just lay the posts down on top of the edge of the row cover cloth - I could use rocks or timber, but I have alot of loose metal t posts, so I just use them. I basically just use the posts as long, skinny weights).

When it warms back up, I remove the fence posts and uncover the garden bed again.

I have veggies well into November or even early December most years, and can usually overwinter the spinach plants completely.

In mid-January, I set up new seeds inside my home using the Park Seed starter system. Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli seeds mostly. I have indoor aero-lights, so I am able to take care of them indoors for the first 4 weeks. At 4 weeks old (Valentines Day), I move them outdoors in the raised bed.

About the same time, I plant tomato, basil and pepper plants using the same Park Seed seed starter system, inside, under my lights.

Around March 15 (a full month before the last frost date), I begin planting tomato and peppers outside, using 5 gallon bucket coverings over the plants if the row cover will not provide enough cold protection on the coldest nights.

Tomato globes don’t form any earlier by doing this. However by giving the tomatp plants an early start, the plants grow bigger, stronger, and resist blight problems for a much longer amount of time, come summer.

Zone 7 here.
 
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TerriHaute

TerriHaute

Hoosier Gardener
John Deere Girl said:
I still have carrots and turnips growing in our garden. They have no protection at all. I forgot to cover them in December during our cold snap. We are Zone 6a.
Click to expand...
I am still pulling turnips from our garden. They were planted last fall in early September. Central Indiana, Zone 5b. In November when the temperatures started to drop to freezing at night consistently, I mulched .them with chainsaw wood shavings, otherwise they have not been covered. The tops are unusable, but the roots are just fine and not mushy. Everything else I planted for winter garden - kale, carrots, Swiss chard - froze and cannot be used but I did notice this week that the Swiss chard is showing signs of new growth with the warmer temperatures we've had lately.
 
M

mecoastie

Veteran Member
Depends where you live. We have had luck with kale, lettuce and a couple other hardies in our covered raised beds. Particularly the kale. It died back almost completely but under the plastic was already pushing new shoots at this time. That Eliot Coleman book is fantastic. Everyone should have it. We are Zone 5.
 
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