West Coast Seeds Fall and Winter Gardening User Guide

Are you interested in learning gardening techniques that will have you harvesting into fall and even wintertime? Use this guide to help inform your garden decisions around variety selection, seed starting, and protecting your crops as they grow.

GROWING FOR A FALL & WINTER HARVEST

Imagine harvesting your own fresh carrots, picked at their peak sweetness, just in time for a holiday meal. Picture crisp lettuce and vibrant salad greens for a cozy fall dinner, gathered right from your backyard or patio. Sweet, oversized onions and perfectly formed cauliflower wait to be picked as spring’s warmer days arrive. With the right plants and planning, a fall and winter garden can keep you in fresh, homegrown produce, extending the joy of gardening well beyond the summer season
This guide will walk you through the steps, from choosing cold-hardy vegetables to timing your plantings. With these tools and tips, your garden can keep producing long after summer is over—a rewarding way to enjoy fresh, local food even in the off-season.

What is Winter Gardening?

With a bit of planning and the right plant choices, many vegetables can be harvested all through fall and winter. To thrive, these plants need to reach full size before the first frost. During the colder months from November
to mid-February, growth slows significantly, so unlike summer crops, these plants won’t regrow after harvest. Some winter veggies lie dormant in the soil, ready to be dug up as needed, while others continue to grow if given a little protection. Knowing what each variety needs is essential to a successful winter garden

CROPS FOR FALL & WINTER GARDENS

With planning around your areas average first frost in fall there are many options available for the fall vegetable garden. Take the opportunity of summer harvesting freeing space up in your garden beds to extend your season into the shorter fall days. Start cold hardy vegetables to size up in the cooler fall days along with quick harvest crops to fit in before the winter freeze. A cold frame or cloche cover can extend the season further for many of the cool season crops and offer protection from severe cold for the cold hardy plants still in the ground.

Cold Hardy Vegetables

Cooler weather allows many cold hardy vegetables to flourish as mid-summer plantings mature in the fall forming a delicious bounty. It also is a great way to reduce pest pressure as the cabbage butterflies will be completing their lifespan and brassica seedlings can be protected with row cover easily in the summer while they are small. With careful planning they can be ready just as the first frosts begin and brassicas sweeten after that kiss of frost.

Overwintering Vegetables

Overwintering varieties are a real treat in the garden, as many long season vegetables perform better if allowed to mature a bit before going dormant in winter. The timing is important as plants need to be at the right stage of growth to survive your area’s
winter temperatures. They are started to be partway to maturity, teenagers you could say, before the first frost. After which they will slumber in your garden through

Broccoli: Head/Crown
Sprouting Broccoli: Broccolini, Broccoli Raab
Brussel Sprouts
Cauliflower: Sprouting (Chinese)
Celeriac
Kohlrabi

winter. Choose varieties that can withstand your areas cold winters or be ready to offer additional mulching and protection to make it through severe cold events. Once days begin to lengthen again in spring causing them to awaken, they will quickly become some of your first spring harvest with their head start.
Broccolis, cauliflowers, onions, and leeks with days to maturity over 90 are typically good candidates for overwintering. Packets for these seeds will also list these crops as “overwintering” varieties.

Overwintering Broccoli
Overwintering Cauliflower
Overwintering Onions
Overwintering Leeks

Leafy Greens

Summer heat can cause bolting in many leafy greens like lettuce, Asian greens, or mustard which prefer cooler growing conditions. Use successive sowing
a couple weeks apart in short rows and use a cold frame to extend their season into fall after frost. Start harvesting them as tender young greens for salads or quick cooking like in stir fries. Cold hardy greens like kale, cabbage, collards, spinach, and Swiss chard need minimal protection if planted to mature before
your area’s average first frost. For cabbage, one of the best times to transplant into the garden is in summer to finish in fall when growth slows from cooler weather which helps prevent splitting and frost sweetens the harvest.

Cabbage
Chicory
Collard
Kale
Lettuce: Salad & Mesclun Blends
Mustard
Asian Greens: Choi, Gai Lan, Shungiku (Frilly Edible Chrysanthemum)
Spinach
Swiss Chard

Root Vegetables

Many root crops are biannual and will grow well into the cooler fall days before going dormant when cold weather hits. Beets, carrots, rutabagas, and parsnips can stay in the
ground with just a little protection from mulch to prevent freezing. Cooler temperatures will provide sweeter harvests. Quick maturing radishes and turnips can mature before the cold hits with a little planning. They also benefit from using a cold frame to extend the season.

Beet
Carrot
Parsnip
Radish
Rutabaga
Turnip

GROWING TIPS

Choosing a Location

Keep in mind that your own garden may contain microclimates in both summer and winter. A garden bed or cold frame up against your home may benefit from the mitigating effect of your home’s warmth. Low spots in the garden will have cooler air pool there creating cold spots and exposed areas will experience more wind chill. Choosing a warm, protected location for your winter garden will help your plants thrive.
It is also important to note that the sun’s path becomes lower in the winter, so what may be a sunny location in summer becomes shady and cold in winter. Ensuring your winter garden is in the sunniest spot in winter can be a matter of survival for your plants.

Minimum Winter Temperature

We have noted the lowest average temperatures that a crop can survive through winter. If you are in an area that regularly receives winter temperatures lower than the minimum for a crop that you plan to grow past fall, you will need to provide crop protection for your winter garden.

If you are in a region that doesn’t regularly receive cold winter temperatures, it is still wise to keep an eye on the regular forecast and be prepared to provide temporary crop protection during a cold patch. This could be as simple as a thick layer of mulch, burlap, a sheet or blanket, or temporary cloches using milk jugs with the bottom cut off or a clear bin upside-down over plants.

Harvest Windows

Through growing the winter garden often means starting in the summer, the harvest window for the winter garden actually spans all four seasons.
Some plants such as leafy greens like arugula, lettuce, mustards, mescluns and spinach prefer cooler weather, but are tender to frost, so without crop protection, will only last through fall. Implementing crop protection will allow you to harvest many of these crops into winter.

Hardier crops like kale or corn salad will provide harvests throughout the winter, provided they’ve put on enough growth by the time cold temperatures hit.
Other crops require cold temperatures to produce a harvest. We often refer to these as overwintering. Some may produce their crop in mid-winter like brussels sprouts or even late winter like some varieties of sprouting broccoli. Others will overwinter without putting on much growth and burst to life in the spring, like broad beans or garlic, the latter of which won’t produce a harvest until summer.

Succession Planting

Some crops like leafy greens and radish prefer cooler weather but can be grown right from spring through winter if planted in quick successions and harvested before they bolt. We’ve listed the planting window of succession crops as ‘up to x weeks before first frost’ to denote the latest window for planting these crops for fall or winter harvests

CROP PROTECTION

Generally, if you are growing for fall harvest, crop protection is not necessary to increase warmth, though you may choose to utilize it to extend your season slightly. You might also choose to implement lightweight row cover after transplanting brassicas to protect them from cabbage butterflies and their subsequent damage.

If you are planning to grow and harvest leafy greens and root crops through the winter, no matter your climate, you will need to have more permanent crop protection in place, such as a cloche tunnel or cold frame. In colder climate regions, this is essential for most any winter crops, including brassicas.
In times of extreme cold, you can protect your crops further with a second layer of protection beneath your tunnel or frame, such as a layer of leaf mulch or a heavyweight row cover. Below are some of the options available.

Cloche Tunnel

A small-scale hoop house can be constructed from cloche pipe in 4-foot widths with each end secured in the ground, forming a circular half-pipe. This basic structure can be covered with various covers below through the year to protect the plants growing underneath from insects, sun, or cold.

Greenhouse Film

The best choice for the winter garden is covering the tunnel with greenhouse film, a transparent sheet of UV protected poly. It acts as a mini greenhouse that will offer wind protection, capture light and warmth—up to 5°C or more— and is also an excellent barrier against pests.

Heavyweight Row Cover

Heavy row cover acts like a blanket–storing heat in the air and soil beneath–and can protect crops down to -4°C (24°F), but it will reduce the amount of light that gets through. It can also be folded or used in two layers for further protection, although light penetration will be further reduced. This may not be as much of a concern in winter when growth has slowed anyway and we are looking to protect what has already grown for continued harvest. It is also a great option to lay on top of plants underneath a poly cloche tunnel as added protection during periods of extreme cold to help plants survive.

Calculating Your Planting Date

You can find the first average frost date for your city or nearest city on https://garden.org/apps/frost-dates/. This is the first date, on average, when you might experience frost at night. Frost dates are not set in stone; some falls are very warm and some are cold. The actual frost date can fluctuate by a month or more. Microclimates and altitude also influence frost dates. However, first
frost dates provide a very good idea of how early to plant different kinds of seeds, and how long to expect a growing season to last.
From there, you can use a crop’s listed planting window in the chart to determine when to plant in your own garden.
Generally, if you are in a region with an earlier first frostdate (September) and will be using crop protection, you will use the shortest time period in the planting window.
If you will not be using crop protection, you will besomewhere in the middle, as you will want to harvest before frost hits. If you are in a region with a later first frost date (late October-early November), you will likely be at the long end of the planting window, since although you may have more days without frost, light levels will drastically reduce from October onwards and the growth of your plants will slow alongside reduced light levels.
Choosing varieties with shorter days to maturity can also help you to work within your planting window.

FALL & WINTER PLANTING CHART

Crop	Planting Window (Weeks before first average frost date)		Optimal Soil Temperature for Sowing/ Transplanting	Sowing/ Transplanting Depth	Spacing (Thin to)	Expected Harvest Window
Crop	Direct Sow	Start Inside	Optimal Soil Temperature for Sowing/ Transplanting	Sowing/ Transplanting Depth	Spacing (Thin to)	Fall	Winter	Spring	Summer
Arugula	5–10		4-12°C (40-53°F)	5mm (1/4”)	10-15cm (4-6”)	•	•
Beet	8–10		10-26°C (50-80°F)	1cm (½”)	7-15cm (3-6”)	•	•
Broad Bean	1–6		10-21°C (50-70°F)	5cm (2”)	15cm (6”)			•	•
Broccoli		15–17	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•
Broccoli Sprouting		14–16	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)			•
Broccoli Raab	7–12		10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•		•
Brussels Sprouts		16–18	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•
Cabbage, fall		16–18	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•
Cabbage, overwinter		14–16	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)			•
Carrot	10–14		7-30°C (45-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	5-8cm (2-3”)	•	•
Cauliflower, fall		10–12	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•
Cauliflower, overwinter		14–18	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)			•
Celeriac		18–32	12-24°C (60-75°F)	5mm (¼”)	30cm (12)	•	•
Endive/Radicchio	8–10		10-22°C (50-70°F)	5mm (¼”)	30-45cm (12-18”)	•
Corn Salad	6–8		5-18°C (45-65°F)	1cm (½”)	5cm (2”)	•	•
Cress	2–8		10-15°C (50-60°F)	5mm (¼”)	5cm (2”)	•
Garlic	4–6		4-10°C (40-50°F)	2-5cm (1-2”)	10-15cm (4-6”)				•
Kale & Collard		12–14	10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•	•
Kohlrabi	10–14		10-30°C (50-85°F)	5mm (¼”)	45-60cm (18-24”)	•	•
Leek		14–20	10-25°C (50-75°F)	5mm (¼”)	20cm (8”)		•
Lettuce	up to 6–8		10-22°C (50-72°F)	5mm (¼”)	20cm-30cm (8-12”)	•
Mesclun & Salad Blends	up to 6–8		10-22°C (50-72°F)	5mm (¼”)	1cm (½”)	•
Mustard	up to 6–8		21°C (70°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	10-15cm (4-6”)	•	•
Onion, overwinter		12–20	21-25°C (70-75°F)	1-2cm (½-1”)	5-8cm (3-4”)
Pac Choi/Gai Lan/Choi Sum	8–16		4-24°C (40-75°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	15-20cm (4-6”)	•
Parsnip	14–20		10-25°C (50-75°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	7-10 cm (3-4”)	•	•
Pea	10–12		10-20°C (50-70°F)	5cm (2”)	2-7cm (1-3”)	•
Radish	8–10		18-24°C (65-75°F)	5mm (¼”)	5-8cm (2-3”)	•
Rutabaga	14–16		18-21°C (65-70°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	15-20cm (6-8”)	•	•
Scallion	8–10		21-25°C (70-75°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	2-5cm (1-2”)	•
Spinach	6–12		5-20°C (45-70°F)	1cm (½”)	5-8cm (2-3”)	•	•
Swiss Chard	10–12		10-30°C (50-85°F)	1cm (½”)	10-30cm (4-12”)	•	•
Turnip	6–8		18-21°C (66-70°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	15-20cm (6-8”)	•
Dandelion	up to 8		10-25°C (50-75°F)	uncovered	15cm (6”)	•		•	•
Claytonia	up to 6–8		10-15°C (50-60°F)	uncovered	1cm (½”)	•	•	•
Chrysanthemum	14–16		18-21°C (65-70°F)	uncovered	25-45cm (8-18”)	•		•
Sorrel	20		22°C (72°F)	uncovered	20cm (8”)	•		•
Chervil	6		19-22°C (65-72°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	23-30cm (9-12”)	•
Chives	8		19°C (65°F)	5mm-1cm (¼-½”)	15cm (6”)	•		•	•
Cilantro	6–8		15°C (60°F)	2cm (1”)	5-10cm (2-4”)	•
Lovage	2–6		15°C (60°F)	5mm (¼”)	1m (3”)	•		•	•
Parsley		6–14	10-27°C (50-80°F)	1cm (½”)	15-20cm (6-8”)	•

FALL & WINTER ABUNDANCE

by Dan Oostenbrink, Local Harvest

Gardening offers us two primary joys. Firstly, it provides a much-needed escape from the pressures of everyday life. Many gardeners find immense therapeutic value in the act of tending to their plants. Secondly, and just as
importantly, is the joy of consuming the fruits of our labor, which nourishes us with high-quality food. Achieving
the first joy inherently depends on our success with the second. Therefore, it’s crucial to determine techniques for year-round food production, particularly during the fall and winter months.

Documents / Resources

West Coast Seeds Fall and Winter Gardening [pdf] User Guide
Fall and Winter Gardening, Winter Gardening, Gardening

References

User Manual