Grow greenhouse vegetables year-round with these six strategies. There’s no shortage of good things to eat throughout the summer and fall growing seasons, but what about those quieter times of the year?
1. Extend Your Growing Season
Choose sheltered, sun-facing walls to help create a warmer microclimate that will keep tender crops such as tomatoes and peppers going for longer. Use row covers, tunnels, and cold frames to provide additional warmth and shelter.
2. Overwinter Vegetables
Some plants can keep cropping all winter. Grow salads leaves such as winter lettuce, leafy greens such as kale and spinach, not to mention carrots, parsnips, and leeks.
Space plants generously to encourage good air circulation and to maximize the amount of sunlight reaching every plant. Use a greenhouse or cold frame to help protect crops right through the winter in colder regions.
3. Close the ‘Hungry Gap’
The period when the last year’s crops are done but before the current season’s are ready is known as the “hungry gap.” Careful planning can avoid this. For instance, plant broccoli, cabbage, and late-season leeks in summer to stand over winter. Some perennial crops will also provide a harvest in spring, including asparagus and rhubarb.
4. Make an Early Start
Sow early under a cold frame, in a greenhouse or hoop house, or on a sunny windowsill. Get an even earlier start using grow lights.
Sow onions and peas in plug trays from late winter to transplant into beds in spring. For others, pre-warm the soil by placing row covers, tunnels, or cloches on them prior to planting to bring the sowing date forward by two to three weeks.
5. Spread Your Harvests
Sow little and often throughout spring and summer, and select a mix of early, mid, and late-season varieties to spread out the harvests as much as possible.
6. Plant in Succession
Plant succession crops from midsummer onwards for autumn and winter harvests. Plant crops that are suitable for storage such as maincrop carrots, plus quick-growing favorites such as bush beans.
Make space for a dedicated nursery area in a greenhouse or cold frame, or in pots in a sunny, sheltered spot, and raise succession crops from seed. This means you’ll have them ready to plant as soon as space becomes available in the garden, so you don’t waste any of the growing season.
Plan for Year-Round Harvests
Our Garden Planner has a number of powerful features to help you plan your harvests. For instance, the Succession Planting feature helps you see where and when gaps will appear. The Custom Filter button can be used to see what can be sown or planted during a specific month; and the Plant List shows recommended sowing, planting, and harvesting times for all the plants in your plan, and it automatically calculates how much your cold frames, greenhouses, and row covers will extend the season by.
Learn more about year-round harvesting in this video.
More Gardening Resources
Our popular Vegetable Garden Planner can help you map out your garden design, space crops, know when to plant which crops in your exact location, and much more.
Need crop-specific growing information? Browse our Crops at a Glance Guide for advice on planting and caring for dozens of garden crops.
More Videos
Watch more videos on gardening techniques and other self-reliance, DIY topics on our Wiser Living Videos page.
Benedict Vanheems is the author of GrowVeg and a lifelong gardener with a BSc and an RHS General Certificate in horticulture. Find all of his MOTHER EARTH NEWS videos and articles here.
