Winter Vegetable Gardening - Harvest Year Round
 (Read 50+ times)
By Clair Schwan
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So you find yourself with winter approaching and you're sad at the prospect of no fresh vegetables on the table. Don't be sad - be happy that you have an opportunity to be a vegetable gardener all year long.
With the simple addition of clear coverings, you can coax any number of vegetables into providing you with a nice harvest well into the winter. With a little planning, your season of vegetable gardening doesn't have to end.
It's November now in Wyoming, and that means temperatures in the teens and twenties, yet we have healthy and vigorous turnips, lettuce, bok choi and Swiss chard in a greenhouse. The greenhouse isn't heated either.
How in the world can you do that without heat? It's easy, just select cold hardy plants that enjoy cool and cold weather. There are about 20 varieties that I can think of, including:
- kale
- broccoli
- Brussels sprouts
- turnips
- cabbage
- snow peas
- lettuce
- Swiss chard
And, the list goes on and on. Some seed companies provide fall and winter seed catalogues, so you won't have to look far for advice.
The trick is to watch how you water, double cover the plants, and harvest when temperatures are well above freezing. That should be easy enough. Let's look at how these factors come into play with a winter vegetable garden.
Water - excess water gets into plant cells and then kills them when it freezes. Water lightly or not at all during the winter months. Evaporation will be low anyway, so going weeks without water won't hurt your crops.
Coverings - the trick with covers is to use them to retain natural heat from the soil and capture heat from the sun. Think of them as a greenhouse within a greenhouse. Whether you have a greenhouse or a high tunnel or a hoop house, using a row cover inside of that structure will make a big difference in changing what the plants "see" in terms of season.
Harvest during the day - to make certain that temperatures are up above freezing and the plants have a chance to recover from the cold night. If you don't, you'll have mush on your hands.
My early spring vegetable gardening experience shows that lettuce can go down to 9 degrees with a simple covering within the greenhouse. If lettuce can do it, then there are so many other cold hardy crops that can easily do it. Kale is perhaps one of the most cold hardy crops, so it is on the top of my cold weather vegetable gardening list.
Be bold, be adventurous, and don't surrender at the first sign of fall. Get yourself a simple structure and row covers to extend your harvest well into the winter months. Fresh vegetables are meant to be enjoyed all year long - from your garden.
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Author Bio Box: Clair Schwan
 Clair Schwan is an experienced vegetable gardener with greenhouses and open sun gardens. See his detailed discussion about winter vegetable gardening at: http://www.frugal-living-freedom.com/winter-vegetables.html
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