I love gardening so much that I hate it when winter comes along and tries to prevent me from gardening. This is the exact reason why I initially started winter gardening a few years back.
Not all vegetables can be grown during the winter. For example if you tried to grow summer tomatoes they wont fair as well and taste good. There are certain vegetables that do well in winter, and these are the ones I will be highlighting below in this post.
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1. Carrots
When it gets real cold carrots produce natural sugars which act as anti freeze, protecting the roots from freeze damage. The best time to plant your winter carrots is in late summer, leaving them in the ground for winter. The Adelaide variety can be sown in early November in your greenhouse. The roots can withstand very cold temperatures, however you may have to cover the green tops with mulch or straw bales when temperature goes below 18 degrees F.
2. Spinach
It is perfect for your winter salads however it has to be grown under covers if you plan on using it for this. Make sure you keep harvesting the leaves throughout your winter and remove any flowers that may pop up or they will turn into seeds. Plant your Spinach in the Fall and you can enjoy it all Spring long too.
3. Garlic
Since garlic is one of those vegetables with a long growing season, if you plant it in the fall it will withstand winter and be ready for harvesting by next summer. This has become my routine and as a result we never run out of garlic on oour homestead. My favorite variety is the Wight Cristo, but I have also tried growing the Chesnook Red in the past.
4. Collards
I used to grow Kale, until I went down south to visit a friend and got introduced to Collards. As far as winter gardening is concerned, Collards tolerate the cold weather better than Kale. The Blue Max variety can withstand temperatures up to 0 degrees F and also have very high yields.
5. Onions & Shallots
Many people do not know that if you plant onions in the fall, they basically take care of themselves during the winter and by they time Sumer comes, they will be ready to harvest. As you can see the growing season is a long one, so make sure that when you plant them, you are planting in an area you will not need to plant something else come Spring. Varieties you can try are the First Early and the Electric Onion varieties.
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nove
