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.
Optimally, seeds should be started in late summer, but nursery seedlings transplanted in early fall will still do well. Some plants, such as onions, leeks, and cole crops, take a while to become established. Plant these early in August.
You need to be planting seeds and seedlings for your fall and winter garden between 6 to 8 weeks before your average first frost date. Some even as early as 10 weeks.
In warmer zones, the winter planting window is wide open. You can sow seeds for winter vegetable crops, like salad greens, radishes, carrots, onions, Swiss chard, English peas and kale.
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.
The modern winter garden is usually a garden planted either to produce food, or at least to remain visibly planted and slowly develop, throughout the winter, or else a garden whose plants will serve as living decoration all winter.
Plant your fall vegetables so that the crops you choose have time to reach maturity before the first frost in your area. Find your first frost date, then count backward based on days to maturity for each type of veggie you want to grow. That's your ideal planting date.
Whether you're new to gardening, or a seasoned pro, building better soil is the single most important thing you can do to improve your gardening success. And fall is the best time to do it! To learn more, read Building Healthy Soil.
Planting in September
Plant now beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots, cauliflower, celery, fava beans, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, both head and leaf lettuce, mustard greens, onions, parsley, peas, potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.
The latest time to plant for most vegetables would be the second week in June with a short harvest time. If planting crops that mature within 50 days, you could plant those as late as the last week in June, but keep in mind the weather will be turning cooler, especially at night. Cool crops are best for late plantings.
Potatoes are a great winter-early spring crop and at this time of the year you will find seed potatoes available in local garden centers and on-line. And there's a potato planting solution for any sized garden! They can be planted in the ground in rows or in mounds, in containers, in potato bags, or in potato towers.
In a 'nutshell' the main drawbacks surrounding no dig gardening methods would include the material cost in the initial set-up, and the fact that most of the techniques are fixed in position. This means that you cannot move them around as you wish, once they are established.
Creating Watering Schedules for Winter Gardening
Water your landscape once or twice per month from November to April. New roots form in the months of March and April. It is most critical to water during these months.
Winter Garden is a very safe community to live in!
Winter Garden's overall crime rate is 14% lower than the national average, with 2,028 crimes annually per 100,000 people. The property crime rate is 13% lower than the national average, while the violent crime rate is 17% lower.
Ornamental kale and cabbage are some of the most popular winter annual plants. They lend a completely different texture to a winter landscape bed. Once the plants are hardened by cooler night temperatures they can survive most cold winters.
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 ...
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.
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.