What can I grow in the vegetable garden over Winter?

[Caroline Wilkinson]

We live in in an area where we get many heavy frosts over Winter and have not had much success in growing anything over Winter due to our heavy clay soil I think?

Anyway we have made some raised beds and used some bio-dynamic preparations and had  the best Summer yield we have ever had so I've decided to give a Winter vege garden another try but am not sure what to plant, any ideas?

[Rex Morris]

Planning ahead for the upcoming season is the trick here - you need to work out when the first frosts are likely and plan to have winter crops established before that. If you plant a range of winter veges in succession before the frosts arrive you will have lots of lovely fresh vege to pick throughout the winter. There is no point in planting frost tender plants such as beans. In the north the problem is not so much the frosts as waiting for autumn - I now start planting in early - mid feb and protect the plants with shadecloth. I plant every fortnight until all my space is used up and I know I will have a lot of veges through the winter. I plant cabbage, cauli, broad beans, broccoli, celery, leeks, silverbet, spinach and have a few lettuces for the occasional salad. I also prepare the ground for onions[red] which I start planting in June and keep going until I have about 150 - sounds a lot but not much space need really. I prepare plots specifically for celery by digging trenches and putting in weeds, cuttings, comfrey, kitchen scraps etc etc that would normally go on the compost. By the time I am ready to plant winter vege these mini composts are ready and the celery thrives on the nitrogen rich compost.

[Ruth OSullivan]

Rex you sound like you are really onto it!! I have been vege gardening for a few years now, and find that each year I gain a little more knowledge and experience in what to plant and when. For my winter garden I start planting parsnips in December, and then stagger plantings of more parsnips, carrots, leeks, silverbeet and celery through to end of March, I continue to plant broccoli every few weeks, and around June I plant several rows of garlic, enough to see me through until the next year.
I guess alot depends on when the frosts start in your part of the country!

[Richard Watson]

Hello Ruth,i'm curious to why you plant parsnips so late in the season (Dec),i only do one sowing in Sep for winter,leeks are also sown at the same time that way they are as humongous as i can grow them by winter,i think maximum yield per sq m is very important.

[Ruth OSullivan]

Um, well, its just when I do really, I find the parsnips grow to a good size by the first frosts, I dont start digging them up until theyve had a hard frost on them- a nicer flavour I think. My neighbour plants their parsnips earlier than me, from what Ive seen of theirs they are too big and tend to be woody by the winter. I do agree about the maximum yield, but in my humble opinion sometimes the bigger and older the vege the tougher they are?

[Mel]

I have planned broad beans, broccolli, carrots, celery and cabbages and have begun to get these in the soil. i have just planted peas a couple of weeks ago and they are already up. i also green crop a lot of my beds to feed the soil and bring in insects come spring when the green crop starts to flower or to use as a mulch when i chop it down. Our winters aren't that frosty but still cold which is why i should probably already have all of these veges in so they get a decent enough time to grow over Autumn and then be ready to eat in winter. Lots of work to do... i do have my winter lettuces in at least. You could always use a cloche to protect plants from the frost overnight; especially if you end up having nice days.

[Richard Watson]

If you get heavy frost like i get,i found its to late for carrots & parsnips by now, lettuces will get to frost damaged,i think the best thing to plant now would be most of the brassica family but not Cauliflower.

[Sean Kemball]

Have you tried Canasta lettuces? Up here they are pretty frost-hardy - although I'm not sure if Auckland frost is the same thing as Cantabrian frost!

Friends on a block outside Auckland had 12 days of consecutive frost last year and the lettuces were fine.

[Kelly Ronayne]

I've had the best results with planting seedlings (rather than seeds) this late in the season - lettuces, winter greens, parsley, etc. I tried carrots, parsnips and beetroot and brassicas over the Chch winter, but planted them too late (about now-ish) and they were a bit disappointing - but that could have been because of my crappy new-flat soil.