Today I want to tell you how you can still grow your Organic Greens in Winter. A lot of people think that your vegetable garden winds down in September. I used to think that too in fairness but I was delighted when I found I could keep growing Organic Greens all year around. After all who doesn’t want their family to have access to fresh Organic food all year around?

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What Organic green can you grow in Winter?

August and September are still very productive months in the vegetable garden. But growth slowing down considerably in October only to grind pretty much to a halt in November. Unless you have a greenhouse or polytunnel (which I’d highly recommend) once the Winter sets in there won’t be any growth outside with short days and cold temperatures. If fact most vegetables outside are either late autumn crops or over-wintering crops. I also will tell you how to use your green house to grow great salad crops in the depths of winter.

The Best Late Autumn crops outside

The idea with Autumn vegetables is to plant quick growing crops that are ready to harvest before growth stops around mid-November.

Crops that are great for this are

• Spinach -which is cold hardy
• Radishes
• Salad crops
• Carrots – although they may not grow big so for baby carrots
• Turnips
• Kale which is great and very frost hardy

 

The Best Over wintering crops Outside

Overwintering vegetables are planted in the early Autumn and will spend the Winter dormant in the ground to hopefully spring back into life when temperatures increase again in March and April.

These crops include

• Spring Cabbage
• Onions like Senshyu which is a yellow overwintering onion
• Swiss Chard
• Garlic – which we plant in October
• Board beans – planted in November

Using your Greenhouse / poly tunnel in for Organic greens in Winter?

The best crops in your Poly tunnel/ green house are the Oriental salads because they grow much more successfully in cooler temperatures and are far less likely to bolt and run to seed than Summer sowed plants. Orientals tend to be frost hardy and while they don’t enjoy being frozen they certainly tolerate it well. Which is why I plant them in Green house.  You need to have sown them by mid-September to get a decent size plant by the time growth slows dramatically from November onwards.

You are in for a real treat with varieties like mustard golden frills and ruby streaks which has to be one of the tastiest salad leaves around and pretty much impossible to grow in the Summer. There is a huge range of oriental salads available as seeds from the Seed Now company. Add bags of colour and flavour to your dinners with these excellent end of year crops.

If you don’t have a Green house our Polytunnel you can build a small tunnel quite cheaply and I have included a link to OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening below.

Patrick who owns the youtube page is one of the people that convert me to winter growing and this small polytunnel is perfect for a small garden.

OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening

I have also made a downloadable quick grow guide for Oriental vegetable to help you start your own. You can even grow them on your windowsill!

Don’t stop growing in winter, enjoy Organic Greens in Winter and keep your harvests coming.

If you enjoyed this post check out my other growing guides and gardening post below

• The Organic Vegetable Garden-September
• How to grow organic Cabbages all year
• Growing Garlic the Right and the wrong way!
• Tomato and Chilli Relish from the garden

My brand new book A Year in the Organic Vegetable Garden has just been released on Amazon as is now available to buy around the world – It is so exiting to have finally come to this point and my handy book includes , growing tips for each month, organic methods I use in my garden and even some recipes to use up your crops and a diary you can use to log what you plant and when.

Sign up for Snapshot and Snippets and get access to my Gardening Printables which will help you start your own Organic garden or help you maintain the garden you have started.

 

 

 

 

 

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