Why Winter Growing Rewards the Prepared Gardener

There is a particular pleasure in walking down the garden on a frosty January morning and coming back with a colander of something green and fresh. While the veg patch may look dormant, plenty of crops are quietly ticking over, and the flavour of leaves harvested in cold weather is often sweeter and more intense than anything you will pick in high summer. The trick is choosing the right varieties and giving them just enough shelter to keep them going through the worst of the British weather.

Winter growing is not about fighting the season, it is about working with it. Growth slows dramatically once daylight drops below ten hours, so the aim is to have sturdy plants in the ground by early autumn that can sit tight and hold their quality rather than put on lots of new leaf. Get that right and you will be harvesting right through to March.

Kale: The Backbone of the Winter Patch

If you grow only one winter green, make it kale. It shrugs off hard frost, improves in flavour after a cold snap and keeps producing pickable leaves for months. The curly types such as Winterbor and Redbor are reliable and generous, while the plainer-leaved Nero di Toscana (often sold as cavolo nero) is superb in soups and ribollita. For something a little different, Red Russian has tender, slightly serrated leaves and a milder taste.

Sow from late June to mid-August for overwintering, either in modules or in a seed bed for transplanting. Aim for plants about 45cm apart in a sunny, well-drained spot. Tall varieties benefit from a stake or a supporting string line, as winter gales can rock them loose. Harvest the lower leaves first and leave the crown to keep growing. A word of warning: pigeons will strip kale bare in a hard spell, so netting is worth the effort.

Winter Spinach and the Perpetual Types

True spinach is fussy about day length and will bolt at the drop of a hat in spring, but autumn-sown crops behave far better. Choose a hardy variety bred for overwintering, such as Giant Winter or Amazon, and sow in late August or early September. Plants will sit small through the darkest weeks and then surge away in February, giving you a flush of proper spinach leaves just when you crave them.

If you want something more forgiving, grow perpetual spinach instead. It is technically a leaf beet, but it looks and cooks much like spinach, and it will keep going through snow with barely a murmur. Sow it in July or August and treat it as a cut-and-come-again crop, picking the outer leaves and leaving the centre to regenerate. Both crops appreciate a soil that has had plenty of compost dug in, as they dislike sitting wet and cold.

Hardy Salad Leaves for Cut-and-Come-Again Picking

Winter salads do not need to be limp or bitter. A well-chosen mix of hardy leaves will give you peppery, sweet and slightly spicy pickings all through the colder months. These are best sown little and often, roughly every three to four weeks from August into early October, in a sheltered spot or under cover.

• Land cress – a reliable alternative to watercress with a good peppery kick.
• Winter purslane (claytonia) – succulent, mild and remarkably cold-tolerant.
• Corn salad (lamb's lettuce) – nutty, soft leaves that stand through frost.
• Mizuna and mibuna – quick, lively and excellent in a mixed bowl.
• Rocket – sow a winter-hardy strain such as Dragon's Tongue for a stronger flavour.
• Mustard greens – the red and green frilly types add colour and heat.

Pick individual outer leaves rather than cutting the whole plant, and the same rows will keep you in salad for weeks. A cloche over a row of these will make a noticeable difference to both yield and leaf quality.

Cloches, Cold Frames and Other Simple Protection

You do not need a heated greenhouse to grow through winter. The aim is simply to take the edge off the wind, shed heavy rain and keep the worst of the frost off the leaves. A cloche made from polythene, fleece stretched over hoops, or even a length of clear plastic sheeting over a homemade frame will do the job for low crops. Lift or open them on mild, bright days so the plants do not cook or go mouldy.

A cold frame is the single most useful piece of kit for a smallholding or country garden. An old window on a timber box, or a purpose-built frame with a hinged lid, gives you a protected spot for salad leaves, young spinach and early sowings. Position it facing south or west, and insulate the sides with straw or bubble wrap if a hard spell is forecast. Ventilate on sunny days to prevent damping off and botrytis.

For taller crops such as kale, fleece draped over a frame of canes works well against pigeons and wind, though it will not protect against a prolonged freeze. A thick mulch of compost or straw around the roots helps too, keeping the soil warmer and preventing the heave that comes with repeated freezing and thawing.

Sowing Timing and Looking After the Soil

Timing matters more than anything else in winter growing. Sow too late and plants will be too small to survive the cold; sow too early and they will be leggy and soft going into autumn. As a rough guide, kale and perpetual spinach go in from late June to mid-August, winter spinach in late August to early September, and hardy salad leaves in succession from August to early October.

Keep the ground weed-free going into winter, but avoid digging it over, as this exposes cold, wet soil and destroys the structure you have built up. A light forking to remove weeds is plenty. Water sparingly in autumn, as soggy roots rot far more readily than dry ones in cold weather, and do not feed with nitrogen-rich fertiliser, which encourages soft growth that frost will destroy.

Finally, be patient. Winter crops often sit still for weeks and then romp away as soon as the days lengthen. That quiet spell in the middle of winter is exactly what makes the first picking in February taste so good.