Seasonal Prep for Cold Weather Vegetables

A lot of people love spring gardening for its new beginnings. It’s a time where you can do all your planting and look forward to what will grow in the year to come. But, wouldn’t it also be great if you had some exciting crops to harvest at the beginning of spring/end of winter? Cold weather vegetables can give you this, and fall is the perfect time to plant them.

Which vegetables are best to plant in the fall?

Here are some of the hardiest winter-growing vegetables that you could plant this fall:

  • Spinach

  • Arugula

  • Kale

  • Parsley

  • Lamb’s lettuce

  • Garlic

  • Onions

  • Spring onions

  • Broad beans

How to prep your garden for planting these veggies

Once you’ve harvested all of your summer crops, it’s time to prepare your garden for planting those winter vegetables. First, you should completely clear your vegetable patch, so pull up any weeds from the roots and clear out your old vegetable plants for composting – summer plants like tomatoes and squash, for example.

You should then dig up the garden to turn the soil, using either a garden fork or a spade. This will help to aerate the soil and break up any clods of solid soil, making it a better texture for planting. At this point, you can also mix in any organic compost to improve the quality of the soil over the coming months by adding nutrients to it as the compost decomposes.

You want to make sure that your winter vegetable bed gets exposure to as much sun as possible over winter, so think about the positioning of your bed. You should manipulate the beds so that the soil is raised a few inches off the ground and slopes slightly to the south so that the soil and your crops get the sun. To maximize this further, you should plan your planting so that taller crops are on the north side and shorter ones are on the south.

Mulching your vegetable bed at this point can also help to retain more moisture over the winter months, which your vegetables will greatly benefit from. To protect your winter vegetable crops from the winter weather, you should also have plastic covers or quilts ready to protect your crops, and cold frames to support them.

If you need any more fall gardening tips, then check out our previous blog post. You can also contact us at Stratford Landscape Supply for all your landscaping needs.

Joseph Plitt