**You can do winter vegetable gardening to get healthy greens for the table**

If you are planting for the winter you need to get the seeds in the ground in mid to late summer and even for some fast growing greens in early autumn. If you are in a heavy frost area you might need

to cover the plants for the winter. I’m not into cloches or row covers but they do come in handy to save your veggies.

After mid summer its time to drop in the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, collards and turnips.

You should also be looking at root crops, such as carrots, radishes, parsnips, beets, onions, potatoes and leeks. All these veggies like it cold. Into autumn drop in the fast growing foods like chivies and radishes and the cover crops of mustard and spinach. With the cover crops what you don’t eat can be used as a mulch and left to rot over winter. Root crops help to aerate and break up the soil so they are very good if you are using a no till approach.

With late planted veggies you have to watch for early frosts even though most of the vegetables above will survive a frost they will just stop growing.

If you have a few corn plants just leave them and they can act as a sort of cover to stop the frosts or to hang the covers on. Vegetable plants need sunlight but planting in mid summer when temperatures are high they also need plenty of water. I like trickle irrigation because it is constant and that helps keep the plants alive.

With plenty of sunlight and water your veggies will take off and be strong and healthy when the cold weather sets in. It might be an idea to plant near a wall or the side of the house, as this will protect the plants when the winter starts to set in.

Check out our Vegetable Gardening Page and see what you think, but now is the time to stop thinking and just throw a few seeds around the house to see what happens.