Top Five Cool Weather Veggies

  • Do you live where the winters are mild and it seldom freezes? Grow these vegetables from autumn until early summer.

  • If you live in a temperate climate, for instance, the Midwest of the United States, all of these vegetables should be planted as soon as the weather is above freezing in the spring. They will do well until late summer. You may be able to get a fall crop in too since they’re all ready to begin eating in about 30 days.

  • Are you living in a cool climate with a short growing season? Plant these crops as soon as the weather is above freezing in the spring and the soil has warmed a bit. You can still do at least two plantings as long as you allow at least 30 days before a killing frost..

Here are the easiest cool weather crops.

 Soil:

All of these vegetables grow best in crumbly, well-drained soils with average pH. Plant seeds any time during the season, beginning in early spring. Carefully weed and keep soil evenly moist but not soggy.

Planting:

All of these crops are best planted directly in the soil, no need to transplant them. You can carefully place individual seeds of chard, radishes, and Asian turnips about 1” apart or sprinkle them sparsely in a straight line. If you sprinkle, thin the small plants to 1” apart.

Sparsely sprinkle arugula, lettuce mix. When the plants are baby greens, you can harvest individual leaves, or cut several inches at a time with sharp scissors. If you leave 2 inches of the plant growing, they will be ready to cut again in a couple of weeks. I suggest succession plantings of radishes and turnips every 3 weeks to have a steady supply. Replant a few feet of arugula and lettuce four weeks later. One planting of chard will last for months if you only cut off individual leaves, as needed.

Harvest:

Begin harvesting turnips and radishes when the roots are the size you prefer. Radishes are perfect for only a few days, so check often. Turnips are great at about the golf ball size. Care: Radishes, turnips, and lettuce don’t do well when the soil temperature gets over 70F. Arugula and chard are more heat tolerant if kept well-watered. Fertilize all your plants with a liquid organic fertilizer every 3 weeks. If the plants are doing well, insects won’t be a problem. Since none of the crops require pollination, it’s easy to cover them with a thin frost blanket supported with wire hoops. This will protect them from insect damage and a few degrees of freezing temperatures, too. Lift to harvest and replace.

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The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.—Wendell Berry