Anyone growing vegetables over winter?
By nancyrowina
@nancyrowina (3850)
September 15, 2009 7:18am CST
I've finally got a plot to grow vegetables in from the adopt a garden scheme they are running locally. It's a bit late in the season but I got a packet of winter lettuce with a gardening magazine I buy and am starting some spinach. The lettuce seeds are coming up (you can see three in the back row) but the spinach seeds haven't done anything yet, it's only been a 2 days though so something is bound to happen soon. More of the lettuce ha come up since I took the picture but still no spinach.
Are there any other vegetables people can recommend? (I live in the UK so it gets very cold). I know you can grow brussel sprouts and some types of onion in the winter, I have no green house so it has to be things I could just protect with fleece when frost is predicted.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@mentalward (14690)
• United States
15 Sep 09
Yep! I am. In some vegetables, the Fall crops taste better than the Spring crops! Cold-loving vegetables like spinach, lettuce, radishes, kale, etc. taste better when the weather is cooler. Radishes are strange veggies; the warmer the weather, the hotter they taste. I like mild radishes so I'm fond of either the early-Spring or Fall harvests. My husband likes spicy stuff so he loves the mid-summer crops of radishes. The hotter the better for him. Not me! Nope! I don't like food that bites back. LOL
I'm actually going to be growing potatoes over the winter, indoors. I have a really large planter and already have some potatoes growing in it. All they need is a sunny South-facing window and enough watering and voila! Potatoes! I started my potatoes this year that way; well, some of them. They did great, too!
As for anything outside, it gets too cold here in the winter for anything to grow outside through the winter. I do like Fall-planted veggies so I plant what I can that I can harvest before freezing temps set in. Then, I just grow what I can indoors, like most herbs and my potatoes. LOL I'd LOVE to try other things indoors. We have the room: a very large basement that's not used for much at all. I have plenty of grow lights, too, so I might just try something else like tomatoes, maybe.
One day, I might get the sun room my husband promised to build me when we moved in here two and a half years ago. With a sun room, I'll be growing as many tropical fruits as I can because I adore most tropical fruits but they're so expensive, even in the summertime because of having to be shipped from so far away.
I just ordered a dwarf lemon tree to grow inside. I had one years ago and it actually did produce lemons. It's great to just pick a lemon and make a nice glass of home-made lemonade. Yummy!
@nancyrowina (3850)
•
16 Sep 09
I had a chance to get a free lemon tree with a gardening magazine I get I would have just needed to pay postage, but I think I'm probably too late now. I like kale and might try and grow some of them, I might also try some winter onions.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (47279)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
15 Sep 09
I had a dwarf lemon tree, too, when I lived in Vancouver. It produced, too.
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@UK_Shree (3603)
•
15 Sep 09
Yes I also live in the UK so I do realise how cold it can get. I will not be growing any vegetables over the winter as I struggle to even grow them in the summer with the unpredictable weather that we have. I do wish you the best of luck with your veg growing over the winter - do keep us updated!
2 people like this
@nancyrowina (3850)
•
16 Sep 09
I've just seen some cheap poly-tunnels in a seed catalogue that are quite cheap, I might buy one of them to protect from the frost. This summer was quite good for vegetables it was quite warm, but still not as much sun as we really need.
1 person likes this
@BarBaraPrz (47279)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
15 Sep 09
Peas don't like it too hot, so maybe you could try them.
Good luck with your winter garden.
1 person likes this
@nancyrowina (3850)
•
16 Sep 09
Yes I've seen a good small poly-tunnel you can put up just over the flower bed in a seed catalogue I have I might order one.
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@BarBaraPrz (47279)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
15 Sep 09
Forgot to mention that I planted out some lettuce seedlings today. They're about 3" tall. If this pleasant weather continues til the end of the month, they should be fine. Then I'll have to rig up some sort of coldframe for them.
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@mentalward (14690)
• United States
16 Sep 09
I heard a great recycling tip for building your own cold frame. It mentioned going to renovation sites and poking around or asking if they were throwing out any old windows (with the glass still in the frames). They're great to place on top of bales of hay or any old wood that you can build into a box around your veggies. You can keep them tightly together or separate them whenever you need more or less heat.
The problem is in finding those renovation sites! I've yet to come across any, although I did see a rather run-down shack of a house that had some storm windows literally falling off the place and have been so tempted to just go and grab them because I doubt I'll ever find out who the owner is. It's obvious that no one lives there and hasn't for quite some time. But, knowing my luck, there would be a police car parked somewhere just out of sight who would see me taking the windows. Ah, well. Maybe a good conscious is a good thing to have, huh?
Of course, you could also rummage around for some odd pieces of glass or plexiglass that are just going to be thrown away, say, by a local hardware store or something and go snag it up and build your own frame around them.
I'm thinking of trying to build parts of a solar oven to use as a "cold frame". They generally have black matte painted sides and bottom and something like aluminum foil on the top portion of a double lid which is propped open to allow the sunlight to reflect heat into the box. The bottom lid is typically glass. The sunlight goes in and is absorbed by the black matte sides which keeps it warm inside. I think that, if black matte painted cardboard or tag board is placed between the plants, that should provide additional heat to keep the soil warm.
(I've made a solar oven before and they really do work!)
2 people like this
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
17 Sep 09
Yes, it is still hot here, but when winter comes I will grow beans and peas and lots of Swiss Chard outdoors (if the bunny rabbits don't get it) and cos lettuce indoors, along with purslane and other pot herbs. I will also grow petunias indoors all winter, as I like their bright pretty flowers year round.
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@nancyrowina (3850)
•
23 Sep 09
my tomatoes are still flowering and ripening and I have some spinach and lettuce to plant out, and I have some pumpkins and cauliflowers growing. The Pumpkins are tiny at the moment though and we only have a month before the frost starts
