Fall and winter gardening tips

Last Updated on July 11, 2019 by Aaron von Frank

Fall and winter gardening is possible for most people in the US. Cool and cold-season gardening is every bit as rewarding and productive as warm season gardening once you learn how, so don’t skip the season! 

When most people think of gardening, it conjures images of warm weather and tomato plants. Sure, the spring and summer gardening seasons are amazing.

However, over the years, we’ve come to look forward to fall and winter gardening just as much as warm-season gardening.

A pile of delicious fall produce: purple kohlrabi, kale, perpetual spinach, and other greens, plus fresh citrus (kumquats, calamondin oranges, and meyer lemons). We grow citrus in pots even during the winter.

Why? During the cool seasons (October – March in our Ag Zone), there are virtually no plant diseases or pest insects to deal with. Plus, watering and maintenance is also drastically reduced.

As long as it rains once every couple of weeks, we don’t even bother to water our fall/winter crops.

Fall and winter gardening techniques

The techniques and tools you use during the fall & winter gardening seasons might be a little different depending on where you live. The further north you are, more effort and technology will be required. 

For the past two winters, we’ve had spells of unusually frigid temperatures that have dropped nighttime temps down into the single digits.

Chinese Napa cabbage starting to head up. Napa cabbages are perfect for cole slaws or fermentations. If uncovered, these can withstand a light freeze, but will be killed or damaged by temps in the beyond the mid-20s.

That’s why we use simple-to-use low tunnel systems that essentially operate like miniature greenhouses. They help bring the soil and air temperatures 10+ degrees higher under our hoops. That translates into abundant harvests of veggies throughout the cold months. We pull back the plastic covers anytime temperatures go over 55°F OR anytime precipitation is predicted.

*If you want to buy an all-in-one low tunnel/polytunnel package + support wiring, here’s a good one from Tierra Garden.

If it gets too hot under your low tunnels, it can actually damage your cool weather plants or force them to “bolt” early (e.g. produce flowers and seeds). If you leave your beds covered during rain or snow, you aren’t letting moisture in and you also risk having your hoops collapse under the weight of frozen precipitation or a pool of rain water.

Snow actually insulates the surface of your plants so the temps don’t fall much below freezing–plus when it melts, your beds get a nice watering. So, if snow or rain is in your forecast, uncover your hooped beds.

A dense bed of young kale and chicory growing under one of our low tunnels. We’ll thin out and eat the weaker plants, leaving behind a few large mature plants that will produce greens well into the spring, eventually producing new seeds.

What Grows Best In A Fall & Winter Garden?

Proper plant selection is extremely important for success in your fall and winter garden. Temperatures in the teens and single digits won’t kill the hardiest winter gardening vegetable plants, such as:

• spinach
• cilantro
• chickweed
• Austrian winter peas (their shoots are a delicious green and they’re a great soil-building cover crop)
• certain cold-hardy kale varieties
• mâche

Even uncovered, these exceptionally cold-hardy veggies can live through some seriously cold temps, although their growth rates might slow.

Yum! Pea shoots taste almost exactly like sugar snap peas: sweet and delicious. Austrian Winter Peas are our favorite winter variety due to their exceptional cold-hardiness and delicious shoots. They also function as a cover crop, helping build soil fertility. We use them as a soil-feeding, weed-blocking mulch in the spring when we put in our summer crops.

Many people are surprised to learn that cilantro is an exceptionally cold-hardy winter green. We’ve had ours survive uncovered down into single digit temps. Even though it’s usually associated with Hispanic cuisine, it actually originates from southern Europe and was brought to the Americas by conquistadors in the 1500s.

Other less cold-hardy cool-season varieties like broccoli, bok choy, lettuce, etc. will most certainly be killed by temps in the teens–if they’re not protected. That’s why it’s best to grow these more sensitive veggies under low tunnels.

Gorgeous young Palla Rossa, an Italian heirloom heading chicory.

There are literally thousands of varieties of produce you can grow during the fall and winter gardening season, so don’t miss out on the opportunity to grow food 365 days per year in your garden!

And don’t be afraid of trial-and-error. That’s how you learn.

Red Mizuna mustard, a gorgeous edible landscape plant. Red Mizuna won’t survive temps much lower than 30 degrees unless it’s given extra protection.

Think about where you live, what techniques and technologies you need to grow there, and what resources you have available. Then get growing!

The sooner you start, the more you’ll learn and the better growing results you’ll be able to have next year and the year after.

Other fall and winter gardening articles you might enjoy: 

• Winter gardening with low tunnels
• 5 ways to grow a fall and winter garden no matter where you live
• Easiest garden plants to grow in the fall and winter
• More fall and winter gardening tips from Master Gardener, Eliza Holcombe
• How, why, and when to use cold frames in your garden