Winter Gardening | 3 Tips to Grow Vegetables during the Winter

It is the end of January 2019 and the winter weather is predicted to be an arctic vortex of cold air that will grip much of the US.

Would you even consider gardening in the winter time after an artic event like this?  I raise my hand because I love the challenge.

Winter gardening is certainly possible with a few garden hacks & applied techniques.

You don’t have to be en expert or experienced gardener to grow plants in the winter.

However, you might want to start off with just a few plants and some simple techniques first to get more comfortable growing in the winter.

The following tips below will serve to give you an idea of the basics of growing vegetables during the winter.

Gardening in the winter can be as simple as having a container of lettuce that you harvest slowly over the course of the winter.  It could also morph into constructing a cold frame for an entire garden bed.

You will also discover a fantastic resource from a delightful winter gardening expert.

Niki Jabbour is one of the premier gardeners on the topic of gardening in the winter.

You will learn about her best selling book,  “The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener” which you can check out here.

1- Veggies in the snow –  What can you plant in the winter?

You must suspend your beliefs about growing vegetables during the winter.  Sure, it is extremely cold out, frost is present on all the windows, and you have a foot of snow outside that you just shoveled.

What vegetables could possibly survive this artic torture from mother nature?

There are certainly many different plants that you can grow during the winter.  You may think that you can try to grow just about anything, but it best to stick with vegetables that can take a plunge of the thermometer.

Here is a list of some of the vegetables that grow in the snow:

• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Beets
• Spinach
• Broccoli
• Claytonia (Miner’s lettuce)
• Peas
• Kale
• Onions
• Cabbage

This list is not complete, but hopefully, you get the picture that you have a wide variety of plants that you can choose from for your winter garden.

It is best to start with a vegetable that you may be familiar with growing year round.

This will give you the confidence to extend your garden harvest into the winter.

My favorite vegetable to grow during the winter is lettuce.  It is so easy to start a container full of them towards the end of the fall season and continue harvesting for most of the winter.

Check out the next tip below for more information about when to start a winter garden.

2- Winter Gardener’s Clock- When should I start a winter garden?

Writing this made me think of the Disney cartoon movie Frozen.

You might be like me and have some younger children that played that watched that movie several times over.

The frozen winter village image filled my head.  There must have been a big towering clock that has snow and ice on it.

I’ll have to ask my kids for sure even if it means watching it again.

Getting your timing right for planting vegetable for a winter garden is crucial.   More importantly, is understanding why it is important.

The winter time is all about hibernation and nature tends to conserve its energy for growth in the spring.

Planting a garden during the winter has this caveat that plays into the rhythms of the mother earth.  Plant growth slows down at this time of year as the days shorten, temperatures fluctuate and darkness increases.

This is important to understand because your vegetable plants may not grow as fast as they would in other seasons.

Here in zone 7B, our winter garden starts in September/October.  You may need to start earlier or later depending on if you live in more extreme zones.

• Check out this post here for an extensive guide on growing lettuce and step by step instructions.
• You can also see this video for more information.

Winter Garden Book Review- “The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener”

When you first embark on a new adventure, you need a guide and a reference.  My choice for a guide and a reference was Niki Jabbour‘s book called “The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener“.

Seeing the picture on the book cover of Niki pulling out a bounty full of vegetables in the snow stirred my curiosity enough to flip through its pages.

Her book breaks it down into 2 different sections:

1. A barrage of different techniques that will help you extend your garden into any season, whether it be the dead of winter or early spring.  This section has many chapters that include topics ranging from Intensive Planting to Growing into Winter.
2. You will find great an abundance of details on techniques in this section that can be applied for growing during the winter.  It really has a wealth of winter gardening structure ideas to serve as inspiration on growing during the winter.  It was the main reason why I purchased this book.
3. This section has a break down of all the Year-Round Vegetables that you can grow.  It is an extensive reference to learn about the different types of vegetables, planting & growing tips during the individual seasons.  It also features Niki’s Picks of the different varieties of vegetables that are optimal for growing in the winter or other seasons.

Following these simple tips and learning from the experts of winter gardening should hopefully give you a boost to try it out.

Start off with 1 simple vegetable and you might be ringing in the new year with fresh lettuce packed in your winter garden.

More Info

• Niki’s Jabbour book “The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener” can be found on Amazon here.  She is also a founder and contributing author for the site Savvy Gardening if you want additional expert winter gardening advice.
• Winter garden equipment that can help (Click on the links below for the latest Amazon price):
  • Tierra Garden Easy Polytunnel Garden cloche
  • Pop up Mini Greenhouse (Dimensions: 98″x49″x53″)
  • Large Garden Cloches, Set of 3