Plant out winter favorites
The best winter flowers include favorites such as hellebores and snowdrops, above. Group them in borders, use them in containers or plant them in hanging baskets. They make wonderful blooms for window boxes, too. See our guide on how to plant a winter container for some further inspiration.
You can sow seeds for winter vegetable crops, like salad greens, radishes, carrots, onions, Swiss chard, English peas and kale. Find out what to plant in the winter in your neck of the gardening woods. No matter where you grow, you can be planting something over winter.
Fall & Winter Vegetable Gardening
Get all your crops established before freezing weather sets in. For winter growing, use frost covers, cold-frames, or poly-tunnels. Snow is a good insulator as well. Growth halts as sun dips below 10 hours per day and resumes as it increases in spring.
Mulch after the ground freezes
So wait until it freezes to add natural mulch like shredded leaves or a layer of clean straw. (Fall is also the best time to collect leaves and other brown matter for your compost bin. This makes a wonderful natural mulch for your beds that will decay and enhance the soil underneath.)
There are various reasons why you should cover raised beds in winter. For instance, it's a good way to protect the nutrients in the soil from winter rains and soil erosion. It also prevents unwanted weeds from growing.
The most cold hardy plants can be placed around the outside of the grouping to help protect the less cold hardy plants from the cold and harsh winds that cause the freezing. Bury The Pot. Dig a hole in the ground and place the potted plant in the hole.
Transplants of warm season vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers or seeds of crops like green beans, should not be planted until the danger of frost has passed as they do not tolerate freezing temperatures (below 32°F) and may see damage when exposed to frost (wich can occur at temperatures below 36°F).
Tomatoes are a warm-season crop that dies back when cold temperatures threaten. This usually means no home-grown tomatoes in winter, unless you have a greenhouse. You can, however, grow tomatoes indoors, but they are usually smaller and produce less prolifically than their summer cousins.
Fall and winter vegetables can be started by seed from late August to mid-September, then transplanted into the garden later. Seeds should be started indoors where temperatures are cooler, then the seedlings slowly transitioned outside once temperatures cool down in early October.
Fall and Winter LEAFY GREENS
A beautiful sampling of some of the leafy greens you can grow in your fall and winter garden, including different varieties of kale, spinach, lettuce, chicory, and even wild chickweed! Spinach is a very fast-growing, cool weather vegetable.
These cold-weather champs are kale, spinach and collards. Other hardy vegetables include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, English peas, kohlrabi and leeks. Hardy root crops are radishes and turnip, which also yields some greens from the tops. Other hardy greens include kale, mustard greens and collards.
Hardy winter garden vegetables include radish, turnip, broccoli, English peas and leeks. A few plants withstand freezes that drive the thermometer to the low 20s and upper teens. These cold-weather all-stars are kale, spinach and collards, all of which grow well in a winter vegetable garden or winter container.
Go for the Gold. We crave sunshine this time of year, so gold and yellow are especially welcome. Brighten a gray vista with a golden conifer, or plant a 'Primavera' witch hazel, which puts on a dazzling display of fragrant, canary-colored blooms in late winter.
According to Myers, the hardiest vegetables that can withstand heavy frost of air temperatures below 28 include spinach, Walla Walla sweet onion, garlic, leeks, rhubarb, rutabaga, broccoli, kohlrabi, kale, cabbage, chicory, Brussels sprouts, corn salad, arugula, fava beans, radish, mustard, Austrian winter pea and ...
Most cucumber varieties are extremely tender and cold sensitive. Generally they will be harmed or killed by frost. Many varieties grow slowly or not at all at temperatures below 55°F. Plants may become stressed and fruit quality diminish during periods of cool weather below 50°F.
Warm your soil by covering it over with black plastic or row covers at least one week before sowing. Peg it down at regular intervals with U-shaped pegs, or weigh the edges down with rocks. Individual plants can be protected with squares of plastic cut to size, or by using purpose-sold cloches.
Thoroughly Water plants if it's not going to rain before the freezing temperatures arrive. It may sound illogical. However, a moist ground stays warmer than dry soil. Watering the night before the freeze comes will insulate the root structure of the grass and plants and decreases the potential for cold injury.
To protect plants from frost, you will need to cover them to keep the moisture from freezing. While an unexpected frost can leave many gardeners scrambling to find anything to cover their tender plants; it is important to use the right materials.
A: Ryegrass, hairy vetch, and clover are all good choices of cover crops for a vegetable garden. All of these crops grow quickly and have a large root system that adds biomass below the soil as well as above it.
Fertilizing in the fall helps plants be hardier when the temperatures drop. We also recommend applying fertilizer in the late fall, toward the end of October or early November. This application will catalyze one last frenzy of root growth and really give your plants some staying power through the cold months.
We don't recommend using plastic for covering because it can heat up like a greenhouse and cause more problems than the cold temperature, especially for leaves that are touching the plastic.