Stoney Acres

In part three of our winter gardening series let’s talk about cold frame crops.

Lettuce does well in cold frames until mid December

Lettuce – most varieties of lettuce will do great in the cold frames.  There are some growers that focus on some extra cold hardy varieties, Johnny Seeds has several.  Don’t bother with head lettuce, it will never get done by the time the real cold hits, but leaf, bib and even romains or cos types will do well.  Be prepared to harvest all your lettuce as soon as the really cold weather sets in.  Even under protection lettuce won’t hold up all winter, when the temps drop into the low 20’s you will start to lose the outside leaves and eventually the whole plant.  Those 20’s usually show up for us in early December, so we harvest the entire plants at that time and store them in a tight container in the fridge.  That usually keeps for another month, so we have lettuce until Christmas.  Last year a friend of mine was able to keep lettuce growing well all winter in a hoop house where he added bottles of water for supplemental heat.  We are going to experiment with that this year so I will report on the progress as the winter approaches.

Spinach is a staple in the cold frame

Spinach – We love fresh spinach in our winter salads.  Most varieties seem to do well, we are trying a new type this year that is different than we have used in the past.  Bloomingdale has a little larger leaves and should be a bit more cold hardy.  January is the toughest month for winter gardens and spinach is one of the few crops that we are still able to harvest at that time.

A hardy stand of Swiss Chard in the cold frame

Swiss Chard – We are big fans of Swiss Chard and it does really well in the cold frames.  Last year we planted 5 four foot rows and we were over whelmed.  We had so much that we picked at it all winter and spring and eventually pulled out the plants and feed them to the chickens to make room for summer crops.  Chard is good as an additional ingredient in salads and is great if you like cooked greens.  We also enjoy eating the celery like stalks in the summer, but we have found that the plants never get a chance to grow big enough for good stalks in the winter; we mostly just grow it for the greens.

Sorrel (on far right) looks like spinach but tastes like a lemon

Sorrel – You can see our sorrel growing on the right edge of this bed.  Sorrel is a perennial pant and we have decided to treat it as such.  The plants you see here were planted as starts way back in February and have been providing greens for us since May.  This year we should have some sorrel all winter.  Sorrel is similar to spinach in texture but has a very distinct lemony flavor.  It is a great addition to salads and can also be use more like an herb in soups, fish or chicken dishes.

Lasting until early December Pac Choi makes a great cold frame crop

Chinese Cabbages – We love Pac Choi (aka Bak Choy) for stir fries.  The smaller leaves are also good in salads.  We plant Pac Choi from starts in September; the plants love the cool fall weather and usually last well into November.  Chinese cabbages are a fall plant, the cool temperatures and lessening light make these plants grow big and tasty.  We have never had much success with them any other time of the year, a friend tells me this is because the increasing light of spring triggers the plants to bolt.  To be honest we have always eaten ours up by November so I’m not sure how well they do over the winter. I have read of people having success planting and harvesting them as baby salad greens in the winter but I have never tried.  We have also had success with Tatsoi as well, which is another Chinese cabbage.

Part four in our winter gardening series will cover more crops to grow!