When is your fall frost date? That can help determine whether or not to wait for more summer plant blooms/fruit - if they have time before frost occurs. Also, do you know when your Persephone days begin? That's when daylight is limited to less than 10 hours per day and plants essentially stop growing for the winter.

I'm planning a winter garden too. Got lots of greens started/in progress, peas that will be done before frost, and a bunch of root vegetables in progress. My fall frost date is October 24 and my Persephone days start November 9.

It is basically your decision. There is no law that you can't pull a plant that is still healthy and producing. Healthy plants get pulled all the time to make room for new things and no one will come and arrest you for doing it. ;-)

Especially as Laura said, if the fruit on it won't have time to develop before frost kill or if you have all of that vegetable you want or if you want the room for Fall plantings.

But I do encourage you to understand the big differences between your climate and Eliot Coleman's. His techniques can work anywhere BUT they must be adapted/modified to fit your climate. That means you have to have as good, if not better, working knowledge of your zone, sun exposure, soil temps, and micro-climate as you do of Coleman's techniques.

Dave

And Coleman makes quite clear that it's probably too late now for you to start fall crops. Even in my zone 6a, much further south than you, the hours of sunlight are getting too short to sow anything for fall/winter harvest. Everything I plan to harvest this late fall and winter are long in and up and growing--lettuces, escaroles, kale, collards, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, Asian radishes--and some I'm already harvesting and will continue into deep winter.

Winter harvest does not mean mid fall sowing.

Laceyvail I think you need to reread Coleman's literature. His charts explicitly show planting dates from seed straight through December in Zone 5. Remember his winter harvest is dependent on cold frames and greenhouses.

My question is also about transplants and then they should be put in the ground.

As for fall planting I can attest from experience that lettuce will grow unprotected straight into the first fall frost in 6a.

Yes, of course, the lettuce is up and growing and completely unprotected as it will be for some time until hard freeze when the protection will be up. But plants do not grow much when daylight falls below 10 hours. So small transplants or anything sown now will not produce much until daylight starts to get longer in late February. So if you're after winter harvest--stuff should good sized by now, since growth will get slower and slower. Then it just stands in the garden until you harvest it.

I've been growing for winter harvest for some years now, so I do know how to do it.

There is no way you can plant anything in December (in a Northern climate) that is going to grow to harvest. It is not just a matter of temperature - there is not enough sun.

I suggest reading Johnny's winter growing guide -- it is geared towards Northern climates. As laceyvail said, nothing is going to actually grow when the daylight falls below 10 hours (which isn't too far away.) http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-winter-growing-guide-high-tunnel-scheduling.aspx

I haven't read any of Eliot Coleman's work, but right on the front page, they note that he has said that growing stops when 10 hours/day of sunlight is reached.

I would definitely not pull anything to plant now. It is probably too late to get a good harvest from just about anything, maybe a few exceptions.

Garlic!

I understand your dilemma because I haven't had good winter veggies since the first winter with my high tunnel because I discovered the high tunnel with sides rolled up is a terrific place to grow tomatoes and peppers. This year after harvesting early potatoes, I did not re-plant and let the space go to waste.

I think the first tip is that after a certain temperature, I think tomatoes start to lose flavor. It's not worth it to keep them growing when nights are never going to be warm again. I agree with pulling a plant when the fruit, like peppers, are never going to get larger and riper.

I also agree with starting seedlings so you have some to transplant when space opens up.

If you are really lucky, there's a local farmer who posts photos on facebook. The one I like posts when they put transplants in the new high tunnel. I also like to compare the size of my plants to theirs.

It's late but I've had late planted spinach start growing in the early spring in the open garden. Also, once you get started (and maybe this year is too late) some things self seed so lazy gardeners like me can enjoy things like arugula, cilantro, and kale which grows when it wants to, provided you have let some plants go to seed.

Give some thought to next year's garden. Garlic is planted in my area of zone five later this month. A low tunnel can provide protection for bush beans through a light frost if they are planted by late July/early August so they can go in where potatoes were grown. There's a lot of good info on Johnny's website.