Vegetable gardening doesn’t have to end with the first frost, you can grow fall and winter vegetable gardens in almost any climate. By planting frost tolerant plants you can extend your harvest well into the fall and winter. Here are my favorite 15 cold weather plants for the fall and winter vegetable garden.
What does frost tolerant mean?
Frost tolerant and cold hardy are not really the same thing, although they are often used interchangeably.
Frost tolerant means that the plant can tolerate ice crystals (frost) on it’s leaves with minimal damage. Cold hardy is the lowest air temperature a plant needs to survive, any lower and it will die.
A plant that is cold hardy to 26F but not frost tolerant can die if the temperature is higher than 26F but there’s frost.
Where I live it’s pretty humid so if it freezes, we almost always get frost. If you live in a drier climate that might not be the case for you.
Here’s a good article from The Farmer’s Almanac about what causes frost and it’s affect on plants.
Frost protection for plants
If you live where you get 10 feet of snow for nine months of the year, you are going to need some kind of green house to grow food through the winter in. Anna from The Northern Homestead lives in a gardening zone 3A (which means it’s cold most of the year) and has some great tips on growing food year round.
If temperatures go below 26°F you can use frost cloth or covered row tunnels to protect the plants. Even if it snows you should be able to grow these plants with protection. If you want to.
Obviously it’s more work for a winter garden when it snows all winter than when you only get a couple of freezes, but it is possible.
Benefits of a fall and winter garden
The fall and winter garden is my favorite garden because it’s not as overwhelming to me as the spring/summer garden is. I can harvest what we need for the day and leave the rest for another day without worrying that it will rot on the vine.
By succession planting I can make sure that the vegetables mature at different times so I don’t have 30 heads of cabbage to deal with in one week.
There is also less pest and disease pressure in the fall and winter garden. And, of course, it’s not as hot as the summer so it’s just more enjoyable to be in the garden during the fall and winter.
I like to use planting worksheets to determine how much of each plant to grow for our family’s needs. You can get a copy of the worksheets emailed to you by filling out the form below.
Fall and winter vegetables to grow
Not only can you grow these frost tolerant plants in the fall and winter garden, they’re also great to grow in the early spring garden because they won’t be affected by any late frosts you might get.
Carrots
Carrots, beets, kholrabi and turnips actually improve in flavor after a frost. After the first hard frost, cover the root crops with an 18″ layer of straw or shredded leaves.
Even if the greens die back, as long as the ground is workable you can continue to harvest the roots through the winter.
Leeks, chives, and onions
Leeks are similar to the root vegetables in that you can mulch them with about 18″ of straw or shredded leaves to be able to harvest all winter.
Chives can be planted any time but in our climate they do well with a fall planting. They will continue to produce all year long.
Onions do well in the cool weather. Bulb onions can be planting in the fall and will be ready for harvest in the summer. But green onions or repeater onions can be harvested all year long.
Hardy Greens
Swiss chard and kale are some of the most important vegetables to grow in your garden. They are both packed with nutrients and both are heat and cold hardy.
Kale can tolerate cold to 10°F and Swiss chard can tolerate cold into the teens. They can also tolerate temps above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so in many zones you can grow chard and kale all year long.
They are the workhorses of my garden.
Spinach and corn salad are the hardiest of salad greens. Spinach can survive to 15°F and corn salad to 5°F! The edges of the spinach leaves might brown, but we just cut those off.
Brassicas
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are brassicas (also called Cruciferae) and the plants in this species are wonderful for the fall/winter garden.
In fact, you can continue to harvest Brussels sprouts even after a snow. Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are tolerant to about 26°F.
Herbs
Parsley and cilantro are surprisingly very cold hardy. Cilantro will survive temps into the low 20’s and parsley to about 10°F. And lest you think parsley is just for garnishing in restaurants and not really worth your time to grow, you should know that it’s great for soups, you can make a pesto with it, and it is a nutritional powerhouse.
Because we love using cilantro all year I grow a lot of it and then freeze it since it’s too hot for cilantro here in the summer.
There are several ways to freeze herbs but for cilantro I just put it in a ziplock bag and toss it in the freezer. When we make salsa with our summer tomatoes I break off a chunk of cilantro and blend it with the tomatoes.
Seeds for the fall and winter garden
My favorite place to buy seeds is from MIGardener which sells only non-GMO seeds and most are just $1 a packet. If you use this link, you’ll get a 10% discount.
If they don’t have what you’ looking for try other places like Botanical Interest or your local feed store.
Are you getting your garden ready for the fall/winter? I’d love to hear about it!
Rebecca | LettersFromSunnybrook.com says
Lots of great ideas here! I love eating spinach, and oddly it is my picky-eater son’s favorite vegetable. I don’t use parsley a lot, preferring herbs like basil as my go to flavor, but it is a perfect complement for potatoes. Thank you for sharing my One Pot Potato Soup recipe 🙂
Christina says
I am going to be sure to get all of these in my fall garden. Some of them we already have, but I will be adding the rest. Thanks for the great list.
Audrey Stewart says
being new to gardening is it too late for seeds for a fall garden?
Angi Schneider says
Hi Audrey, it depends on where you live and what you are going to plant. The best thing to do is to find out what your gardenin zone is and when your average first frost is, you can just google that. If you live in zone 9, like me, you have plenty of time for seeds. If you live in a zone 3, you probably want to start with some transplants. Just to be on the safe side, I would probably do a combination of seeds and transplants. Let me know if you have any other questions, I love talking gardening 😉
Patti says
Hi Angi,
Found you at Tuesday Garden Party. Great tips for cold weather growing. I live in PA so the season is kinda short but I bet your growing season is fabulous in Texas.
Have a good one.
Patti
Angi Schneider says
Hi Patti, glad you’re here. We are actually able to grow something all year long. We’ve have a short 6-8 week break during the heat of the summer but it’s supposed to cool down soon and we can put in our fall garden. Thanks for stopping by.
daisy says
We’ve been waiting for fall planting all summer! Our veggies do well in our mild climate and I can’t wait to see what comes up! Enjoy your fall crops! Thanks for sharing on The Maple Hill Hop!
Angi Schneider says
Us too! Fall/winter gardening is the best.
Karen Goodman says
I’ve only grown herbs in the past, but I’m getting ready to move from a condo to a house again and when I have a yard, I’d really like to try growing some vegetables. I’m pinning this list for next fall!
Angi Schneider says
How exciting, it will be fun to have a yard again.
Adrienne @ Whole New Mom says
LOVE this post – my question is – how late can we plant these things? I live in Zone 6. Thank you!
Angi Schneider says
hmmmm, I’m not sure so I looked at this, http://www.thevegetablegarden.info/resources/planting-schedules/zones-5-6-planting-schedule, and it looks like most things should have already been planted. BUT if you could find some transplants it would be worth a try.
Victoria @ Stable Hands Equine Massage says
I had no idea about some of these. Thank you. Too late here for this now but will be growing them next year.
Angi Schneider says
I was surpsrised by a couple of them also. Thanks for visiting!
Jennifer says
This is a good list of frost hardy plants. Thank you for this post.
I just can’t let this pass, though. Cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are brassicas. They are not coniferous!
Angi Schneider says
Hi Jennifer, thanks for catching my typo. Yes they are brassicas also called Cruciferous – not coniferous. I will certainly edit the article with the correct word. Thanks again.
Jim Currie says
All of your information is very good and living in a cold climate, I appreciate all of it . However, may I make one correction? You said: “Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are coniferous and the plants in this species are wonderful for the fall/winter garden. In fact, you can continue to harvest Brussels sprouts even after a snow. Broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are tolerant to about 26°F” the term actually is they are cruciferous or crucifers. Conifers are fir trees. This is not a criticism of your information just an editorial comment.
Angi Schneider says
Hey Jim, thanks so much for catching that! Yes, I know the difference apparently my fingers didn’t when I was typing and spell check doesn’t catch mistakes like that….lol. I appreciate you taking the time to let me know.
Mrs. D says
Thanks for this article! We’re expecting a freeze tomorrow. Now I know what plants I can leave in the garden and focus on harvesting the plants that won’t survive. =)
Angi Schneider says
You’re so welcome!
Molly says
Definitely planting beets, kale, corn salad, and more spinach.
Johanna says
Hi You left out snow peas. As the name implies they can take some snow but they would be fine under a garden blanket. You can also grow alpine strawberries. They tolerate cold and are the first berry to produce in spring. The berries are the size of wild strawberries but they are prolific until heavy snow covers them. You can grow them from seed. They don’t produce runners. They are pretty and tidy. I plant them in my flower garden.
Growing in zone 3 for winter crops is a lost cause. We get snow in late August and in late June. By mid September we are in the -20s and even in the low hoops and glass (cold frames) the ground is frozen and I spent 45 minutes which a hammer and large screw driver hacking out a leek and carrots for soup. I saved one carrot for later but it was mush when it thawed out. I will not be trying that again.
Angi Schneider says
Thanks for the tips! I’ll have to add those two into the post.