Winter Garden Ideas: Crops Your Neighbors are Harvesting Right Now

It’s OK to be a little skeptical when we start talking about winter garden ideas and Chicago.

You’re probably nodding your head and narrowing your eyes as doubt involuntarily makes you ask: “Crops? In this area? In, like, snow season?”

You heard right, so read on to learn how winter gardening goes down in zone 5, and why some consider it their favorite time of year to plant and reap.

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First, We’ll Begin with a Confession

Those of you who know me know that I’m all about sustainability, ecological responsibility and conservation. But I have to first confess that I’ve never actually tried winter greenhouse gardening at my own residence.

Not yet, anyway.

Like a lot of you, I’m busy and I have a long list of things I’m getting around to for myself. But while I’m getting around to this one, I can still share my knowledge with you—and maybe even inspire myself to build my own hoop house this coming fall for next year.

Second: There are Great Reasons to Grow Crops in Winter

According to those who have grown winter crops, freshly harvested winter foodstuffs are some of the best eating you’ll get over the course of any growing season, including summer.

And because one of the most labor-intensive parts of keeping winter crops is actually harvesting the crops as they mature, you can bury any thoughts you may have about slaving away in a small greenhouse in sub-freezing temps. Why? Because winter gardening practically eliminates all of the “hard parts” of gardening. With no pests to deal with, no weeds to pull and an extremely limited amount of watering to do, winter gardening in a hoop house with cold frames is primarily a prep-right-and-go proposition, where a little labor up front pays off all winter long.

Third, a Primer on Winter Crop Garden Ideas

Before we talk about how you do it, let’s look at a list of some vegetables that are capable of growing through a typical area winter and how you might use them. We have:

1. Carrots: Saute, steam, roast, bake or add them to your salads
2. Kale: Great for making chips, salads and smoothies
3. Leeks: Use in soups, on salads or in a quiche
4. Spinach: Use in salads, in omelets, on pizza
5. Collards: Stir fry, saute or serve with pasta
6. Swiss Chard: Use in tacos with scrambled eggs, in bean soup or topped with cheese in a casserole
7. Turnips: Bake, boil, roast, steam or make a coleslaw
8. Mache: Use in scrambled eggs or in salad
9. Cabbage: Boil, slaw or bake
10. Lettuce: Salads
11. Scallions: In soups, bean salads or saute with meats
12. Tatsoi: Use anywhere you would use spinach
13. Claytonia: This “miner’s lettuce” is high in vitamin C, beta carotene and protein.
14. Mustard: Blanche, saute or use in smoothies
15. Dandelion: Perfect salad fixin’s and full of micronutrients
16. Escarole: Soups, salads, side dishes and tarts
17. Parsley: On pastas, in salads and on fish
18. Endive: Use in soups, salads. Try it grilled.
19. Mizuna: In salads, on pastas, with risotto, in soups.
20. Chicory: In warm salads, with mustard green, on cheese dumplings.

Lastly, Let’s Take a Look at How You Create a Winter Garden

To begin, all of the crops above need to be seeded sometime between mid-July and mid-October, which is–conveniently–that somewhat quiet period after the bulk of your spring and summer gardening workload is complete.

In order to survive and thrive in Chicago winters, these winter crops need to be grown in cold frames (one layer of protection from the elements) placed inside a small greenhouse, such as a hoop house (providing a second layer of protection from the elements). This double layer of wrapping provides enough protection as to be the equivalent of growing crops a full two zones warmer (one zone of warmth is gained for each layer of protection from the cold that is added). Note that cold frames can be built out of scrap wood and old windows or they can be purchased in kit form. Hoop houses are also available in kit form or you can use the internet to some research; here’s one example of how to put your own hoop house together.

I also recommend watching OneYardsRevolution’s YouTube Channel to learn more about winter gardening here in zone 5. You might want to start out with Patrick Dolan’s “8 Keys to Growing in Winter in an Unheated Greenhouse (Hoop House),” where he’ll walk you through his hoop house and show you the basics of caring for your winter crop.

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