Here is a list of annual vegetables for winter, along with some useful growing tips. These are hardy vegetables that can be left in the ground throughout winter so that you can be harvesting food from your garden or allotment up until Christmas dinner and beyond.
There is no need to dig up and find places to store all of your vegetables at the end of the main growing season. There are many frost tolerant vegetables for winter that store perfectly well left in the ground.
The cold temperatures actually benefit root vegetables such as parsnips, beetroot, turnips, and carrots. These plants convert their starches to sugar to protect themselves from freezing and taste all the better as a result!
Be careful though if temperatures in your area get well below freezing and your soil does not have good drainage as root vegetables can freeze in the ground and later turn to mush. You can look to covering your winter crops with a decent mulch layer of straw or leaves or dig them up and store them elsewhere.
It’s a really good idea to plan your growing strategy so that you have a good selection and quantity of vegetables for winter. Through the summer and autumn you will have a wide range and an abundance of food crops to harvest, but there are less options to grow through the colder months, and none unless you get your seeds sown and your plants established before the cold weather sets in.
List of vegetables for winter
(choose frost-hardy varieties when planning to grow for winter harvesting)
Sow in early spring to early summer:
Leek
Winter cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Beetroot
Parsnip
Celeriac
Sow in early to late summer:
Potatoes
Kale
Savoy cabbage
Chard
Turnip
Swede
Carrot
Sow in late summer or early autumn:
In colder regions the following winter salads should be protected by a cloche (some kind of low protective structure to create a warmer microclimate inside) before the first frosts.
Winter lettuce
Winter purslane
Winter radish
Land cress
Chicory
Endive
Rocket
Mustard
Pak choi
Mizuna
Mibuna
Lambs lettuce
Water cress