I recently read this article by Zero Mile gardener Carolyn Herriot in Common Ground magazine, about what to plant for a winter garden.

June – August are the best times to plant out winter crops including:

May/June: Sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, winter cabbage, kale, collards, chard.

June/July: Root vegetables – beets, turnips, rutabagas, celeriac, parsnips, kohlrabi, carrots, ‘Walla walla’ onions, scallions, endive.

August: Direct seed arugula, corn salad, winter lettuces and mesclun, radicchio, oriental greens, mustards, cress, spinach, coriander, winter radish, kale, chard.

Has anyone had any luck growing through a Pemberton/Mt Currie winter?

Tender leafy greens will fare better with protection from a cloche or cold frame. A wooden frame covered with a single-pane window or a polytunnel made from 6-mm plastic work well for this purpose. Lettuces do require protection to survive hard frosts, but even when frosted right down to their roots I’ve known them to grow back when the soil warms up in spring.

Here are some of Carolyn’s tips.

Plan ahead for a winter harvest

• Grow your family’s favourite vegetables.
• Follow where earlier crops of peas, potatoes, lettuces or garlic have been harvested.
• Sow seeds direct in the garden from late June to early August.
• Seed starts from late June to mid-July, grow outdoors in a cool location, out of full sun and lifted out of the range of bugs!
• Transplant in the garden no later than September so that plants are well established by hard frosts.
• Add lime to soil to prevent club root in Brassicas.
• Help transplants get established with feeds of compost tea.
• Remove older leaves to prevent build up of flea beetle and cabbageworm.
• Harvest after hard frosts when the food is sweeter.
• Tender, leafy greens fare best with protection from cloches and cold frames.
• Be patient with sprouting broccolis (white and purple). Leafy plants form large heads in spring, followed by weeks of tender sprout production. Harbour Publishing). http://earthfuture.com/gardenpath/