Winter vegetables?
Question:what winter vegetables can i grow and when do they need to be planted for winter consumption?
Answers:
There are lots of things you can grow for winter consumption as long as you have proper storage space.
A great book on this topic is "Root Cellaring" by Nancy and Mike Bubel
Good veggies for storage include carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, potatoes, onions (red or yellow, not sweet), garlic, leeks, beets.
Good veggies for fresh harvest in winter include kale, arugula, lettuce, spinach, cabbages, brussel sprouts. You will have to protect these crops with an unheated hoop house or hey will succumb to cold winds. Plus it is miserable trying to harvest in cold windy snowy conditions. During the shortest days of the year most leafy greens will go dormant and not produce but they are quite alive and will spring back into action by Mid Feb in the northern hemisphere.
A great book on this subject is Eliot Coleman's "Four Season Harvest"
Veggies that will be going through winter must be started in late summer/early fall so they are mature by November when the weather gets cold. carrots should be stared mid July, Rutabagas and parsnips need to be started in spring (mainly because they need cool soils to germinate and take a long time to grow). Lettuce can be started late October as can spinach. Alliums such as garlic and onions cannot be over wintered for eating but do best started in October and November for summer harvest and winter storage. Over wintered onions in anyplace with winter temps going below 10F will need protection (row covers, cold frame or hoop house) garlic needs nothing but heavy mulch.
go to a garden centre and read the various veg labels. most can be planted in late autum and in rotation, so you do not have , lets say, lettuce in one harvest, but staggered during the summer, etc. Good Luck.
Not knowing where you live makes this a bit hard to answer. Cold weather veggies are radishes, onions, carrots, lettuce, peas, if it freezes where you are forget it.
Look at root vegetables and things like cabbage and brocolli and potatoes and onions.
Broad beans are another good one. You can use poly-tunnels to help protect some surface veg from frost.
You want to look at planting soon to get a pre-christmas harvest.
Depending on how cold your winter gets, you can grow lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots and herbs in a cold frame. Maybe some determinate tomatoes.
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