my fall/winter garden will consist of mostly cool weather greens. chinese gailan, kale, shogoin radish...for starters.

Up here in Va Z-7 what has worked well for me is to start planting around the 3rd week in Aug. Put out broccoli & cabbage transplants plus direct seed carrots, collards, and kale. If it's dry and hot I wait until Sept 1st and hope for a mild autumn and a late winter. vgkg

I plant snow peas in the fall and by spring they start producing early. They look miserable thru the winter but they recover quickly when a little sun comes out in April.

For me it'll be...

carrots, cabbage, kolorabi, broccoli, brussell sprouts (no luck in summer), cauliflower, spinach, snow and snap peas, radish, spinach, and strawberries.

Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce. We have such a hard time getting it to grow in the summer heat that we're desparate for a salad or three by the time the weather cools. If we're lucky we can get a mixed green salad on the table for Thanksgiving. And then the brassicas, specially broccoli rabe. And everything everyone else mentioned. Winter is our best growing season, I think. Too hot and dry for anything except tomatoes, corn and peppers through the summer (and the ubiquitous bean).

Lots of leafy green things: lettuce, mache, kale (lacinato), chard, cavolo nero, radicchio. Cabbage and related things: red and green, Savoy, kohlrabi, gai lan, bok choy. Radishes, incl daikan. Scallions.

Previously attempted, but no luck: endive, escarole, brussels sprouts.

Last fall the flea beetles got my collards and caterpillars ate my cabbage.

I guess I'll try those again though. Definitely lettuce and other salad greens AND LEEKS, I want fresh leeks for Thanksgiving. I'll also try overwintering some carrots and maybe endive.

I tried overwintering carrots last winter. It worked great. The carrots stayed fresh and sweet all the way through spring. This fall I am going to plant lots. My kids eat carrots like candy. And they where thrilled to be able to pull them out of the ground.
Kendra

I had good results with carrots in a raised bed in the hoop house too. The soil was a special mix of creek sand, peat (bought at an auction with other stuff) and compost to be as loose as possible. I watered well, marked a grid of 2" squares and put one seed in each intersection, and sprinkled on a little more peat to cover the seeds. They came up beautifully and provided carrots all winter.

I was pretty disappointed with mache. It seemed to tie up a bed for quite a while then gave so little in return. I'm going to try radicchio and frisee (sp?)endive as well as more lettuces this winter. I supply greens/herbs to a natural food store in town so yield/square foot is important for me.

MOgardener--not to be confused with MOgardener1

Hey everone!

This is my first time planning a winter garden. So far this spring I planted sugar snaps, sweet peas, snow peas, kohlrabi, parsnips, collards, spinach, carrots, leeks, bunching onions, beets, a red variety of romaine type lettuce and mesclun mix. I have some warm weather plants as well. Bell peppers, eggplant, three varieties of tomatoes, jalapenos, serranos, poblanos, tomatillos.

Everything is doing well, even with the cut worms taking 9 of my pepper plants,(I have remedied that as of today - collars and cayenne pepper!)

This winter I would like to try brussel sprouts, broccoli rabe, cabbage and of course more kohrabi and all the cold tolerant plants listed above.

Well, hope I wasn't to long winded, I just love gardening, even though I an amatuer. I have lots to learn and am hoping this is the place to do just that.

red14D

Turnips are so sweet and the wire worms have pasted so the turnips are blemish free.

Turnips, spinach, lettuce, brocolli, cabbage, sugar snap peas, brussel sprouts...

Some things people haven't mentioned yet that that do great in fall and will over-winter in Z4 with protection include: arugula, cilantro, parsley (flat leaf is sooo much better than curley), sorrel, scallions, and of course, spinach. Today, I planted artichokes for the first time in one of my hoop-house beds and will try wintering them over.

Tender Arugua in fall is especially good in a pear and walnut salad topped with shaved parmesan. (Why am I talking about fall when its finally spring?!)

Mizuna, tai soi, beets,chard,spinach, mustards, kale, aspargus, leeks(harvesting last years planting now) assorted lettuce, salsify.

grwleye? Never heard of cavolo nero or gai lan. What are they?

Barb,
I don't know what cavolo is but gai lan (kailan) is an asian leafy veggie. similar to bok choi but not in the same family. very tasty! www.evergreenseeds.com has it available.

Cavalo Nero is a kale. But it grows on a long stalk. If you pick from the bottom it looks like a little palm tree. Very, very dark green leaves. Very yummy.

first time for fall garden - broccoli, cabbage, lettuce (2 types), peas (eat pods), and Egyptian onions (all OP). Since it's an experiement, we decided to include saving seeds. Talk about a learning curve!

Well as I read through this I see sooo many things to try, but this year.....
Brocclli
cauliflower
cabbage
brussell sprouts
lettuce
spinach
carrots
parsnips
beets
radishes
peas
bok choy
cilantro

Hi. I'm a new member! We are going to try a fall garden too, and are particularly hoping to grow parsnips. When is the best time to plant the garden? I hope it's not too late.
thanks.
Carol

Hi Carol,
I'm not sure about what the weather does in your zone (I am right under you though). This is my first year with a winter/fall garden. Our summer weather was so miserable hot and dry. This past weekend we got lots of rain and our temps are in the 80's to low 90's. We are putting everything in the ground this week and hoping for the best. Salad greens and beets we will plant every week or 2 until the middle of October so we don't have it all ready at the same time. We were able to keep alive some tomato, pepper and okra plants and we are planting around them. We also planted parsnips today, just curious what they taste like. Beet greens are wonderfull cooked like youwould spinach and it seems pretty easy to grow.
Best of luck to you. Hope you have a bountifull fall/winter garden.

Hi, I live in Austin Tx. and I have sown seed for broccoli, spinach, kholrabi, cilantro, beets, carrots, cauliflower, onions, (I plantd onion sets too), and several kinds of lettuce.

I've never tried a fall/winter garden before, so this is a first for me. I'm flying by the seat of my pants I tell ya! I sure hope I have some good luck. :)

My summer garden did very well, and I still have peppers, eggplants, and melons producing. My goal is to have something growing and producing in my garden year round. I love gardening!!

Dont forget garlic and shallots.

When is the best time to plant leeks? Also, should I start from seeds or from small plants bought at a nursery? I assume that I missed the fall and will now have to wait until spring. Is that correct?

Thanks,
Bill T.

My surprise success this fall was endive. I can't say exactly which variety, it was a generic from the feed store.
Possibly "Batavian".

Broadcast probably too thickly, in 2 ft wide beds, it quickly formed a dense carpet which thoroughly choked out weeds. It then grew into a mat of rather spindly plants much too close together I'm sure. But as it got about 10" tall, with plant density about 4"x4", I was able to clip them to get leaf cuttings by the handfuls, yet not kill off the growing point of the plant.

These first leaves weren't the typical curly endive leaves, but were similar to a young romaine leaf lettuce, but separate leaves. My customers loved that they needed almost no washing because they were so thick no rain splashed up. Each week I went further down the bed, cutting a new section each time.

Eventually, the endive began to 'head up' and develop the curly leaves I expected. Being crowded, these leaves were more erect compared to the flattened heads of endive I had grown before, and as fall got cooler, they grew crisp and creamy, even white and rather blanched out in the interior of the heads. Right down to 15 degreesF they held well, but eventually succombed to the more intense frosts and were gone. I held some in the fridge for some weeks, and wonder if some might have held even longer if uprooted and stored in a cold frame or tubs in a root cellar.

All in all, a great crop. I'm considering trying some of the european varieties, I see the Italians seem to specialize in these, but really don't know which is which or what these varieties have to offer.

Give endive a try!

Here is a link that might be useful: Italian endives buono!

I planted seeds of an assortment of endives and chicories from Francini Seeds at the end of summer. I broadcast them rather thickly in and allowed the young plants to crowd while they wintered over. With the days warming, the plants are beginning to grow, with some already heading and the rosette-types throwing out leaves. Today, I was able to tease out and transplant about 50 beauties - red, burgundy, striped, spotted, tight-headed, erect, and frilly. They are so beautiful that I put a lot of them right in the flower beds. Of course, all the trimmings went into the salad bowl. There are still about a hundred in the bed which I will keep for "cut-and-come-again" leaves. Transplanting some of the chicories requires care, as the roots were often more than 6" long already. For those who haven't eaten chicory roots, they are delicious - rich and sweet.