Plant these greens this winter
The secret season in your food garden is fall crops. Because frost doesn’t come to many areas until quite late, there’s a lot of growing time now.
As everything from summer is dying, the leaf-bearing plants such as kale and root-bearing ones like beets are thriving. These plants don’t need long days to flower and set fruit. The moment your kale produces leaves they are ready to cut and eat. Plants grown for leaf and root are planted from seed at summer’s end, or buy well started seedlings if you start too late. The moment the greens are large enough to pick you’ll enjoy a daily supply of cooking greens for the kitchen that increases every week.
Once established, some of the winter greens such as kale are quite frost-tolerant. Many aficionados believe kale greens grow sweeter after being touched by frost.
Row covers are the best way to grow greens in any season. Hoops and covers are now available through most organic gardening catalogs. In milder winters, row covers ensure you have fresh greens all winter long to snip and sear and enjoy.
While everyone is all excited about kale these days, consider lesser known winter greens.
Swiss chard is unique in that it’s a pot green that cooks very quickly. The leaves have no bitterness, so you can saute them in olive oil with any other ingredients you like.
Beets are the unknown green disguised as a root crop. In fact, beet greens are so popular some varieties are expressly developed for larger foliage heads rather than an improved root. Once you discover how useful winter greens are, you’ll never go into fall without planting your winter greens.