Tag: cold-hardy vegetables

Fall and Winter Vegetable Growing, Harvest and Storage

 

China Rose Winter Radish.
Photo Seed Savers Exchange

You can find a wealth of information on my website about growing, harvesting and storing winter vegetables. There are many links here in this post (all should open in a new tab, so you won’t go down a rabbit hole), and you can also use the search box in the upper right to enter whatever vegetable you are wondering about, and “grow” “harvest” or “store”, Remember I also have several annual series of posts, on Asian greens, root vegetables, workhorse crops, alliums, cooking greens, and lettuce. Just don’t look for “Storage lettuce” until April 1st.

I’ve also included some good blogs that I sometimes consult.

  1. Fall and Winter Vegetable Growing

Season extension into cold weather

Prepare your garden for colder weather: plant winter crops if there is still time, use rowcover on hoops to protect crops from wind and cold weather, plant up every little bit of space in your greenhouse or hoophouse.

See my posts

Spinach over-wintered in our cold frame
Photo wren Vile

And here’s a post by Shannon Cowan, the blog editor at Eartheasy.com:

Winter Gardening: Best Crops to Extend Your Harvest

Shannon suggests using a variety of strategies. “Plant some vegetables that will mature quickly, others that will hold well in your garden beds, and still others that will overwinter and begin growing again when the days lengthen.”

This is also my approach. See my posts

Fall-grown senposai.
Photo Pam Dawling

Good late season vegetables: salad greens, Swiss chard, beans, peas (in climates milder than 7), carrots, radishes, senposai, spinach, pak choy, cabbage and winter lettuces.

Good cold hardy vegetables: Plant in late summer and fall to harvest throughout the winter. These late-sown crops reach full maturity before seriously cold weather, and hold so you can harvest them when the rest of your crops have been eaten. They don’t usually grow much during the winter, but they do stay fresh. Grow enough to supply your needs without depending on any further growth. This category includes Asian greens, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, collards, kale, leeks, scallions, spinach, turnips and other root vegetables,

Good crop protection so you can grow some crops through the winter. If your winter temperatures routinely drop below 25 F (- 4 C), crops need protection, from simple rowcover to hoophouses or greenhouses. This improves the temperatures, but it’s hard to address the reduced amount of daylight or sunlight. The increased warmth, plus the protection from winds, can be enough for some, such as spinach, kale and lettuce, to make some growth whenever their temperature is greater than 40F (5C).

Using a sturdy digging fork to harvest leeks in December.
Photo Pam Dawling

Good slow growing crops to harvest outdoors in late winter or early spring. In this category are crops that go into the winter less than fully grown. After the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen, crops start growing again, making them usually ready for harvest very early, much earlier than any crops planted after the solstice. They don’t usually need winter protection and include beets, some types of broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, kale, onions, garlic, garlic scallions, spinach, kale and collards.

See my post Winter radishes, planting garlic.

Good crops to grow in hoophouses include arugula, beets, chard, Chinese cabbage, collards, kale, lettuce, Maruba Santoh, mizuna, mustards, pak choy, parsley, radishes, spinach, tatsoi, Tokyo bekana, turnips and Yukina Savoy

Hoophouse Bright Lights chard in winter.
Photo Wren Vile

See my posts

  1. Fall and Winter Vegetable Harvest

See my posts

Harvested Purple Top Milan and White Egg turnips.
Photo Pam Dawling

Here are some links to a couple of good sources for more harvest information:

Piedmont Master Gardeners Garden Shed Newsletter

Guidelines for Harvesting Vegetables by Pat Chadwick

A list of seven basic principles of harvesting, followed by a crop-by-crop list of almost 50 individual crops and a resource list of 18 publications (focused on the mid-Atlantic and Southeast)

Roxbury Farm Harvest Manual (Roxbury Agriculture Institute at Philia Farm)

October Tips from Harvest to Table, by Steve Albert covers all climate zones and comes complete with a USDA Hardiness Zone Map

Links to other posts by Steve Albert

  1. Fall and Winter Vegetable Storage

I already have posts on root cellar potato storage, onion storage (alliums for August), Garlic storage, Storage vegetables slide show, Root Crops April, Feb, Jan, Dec, Nov.

See my posts

Sweet potatoes in storage. An ideal crop for winter meals, as they store at room temperature for a long time, maybe seven or eight months. Photo Pam Dawling

Getting ready for frost and colder weather

 

Eat-All Greens rows with frost in December. October and part of November are still productive growing weeks in central Virginia. Photo Bridget Aleshire

Gardening does not end with the first frost! We will work our way from clearing the least hardy crops to those we can leave outside all winter. See our table Winter Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables. We will harvest or cover all the frost-tender crops, make a last harvest of rhubarb (the stems are hardy to 22°F (-6°C)) and hoop and rowcover the last outdoor lettuce. Our June-planted potatoes will be our last big harvest for the year.

We pull up the biggest Purple Top turnips and Cylindra beets, leaving the others a bit more room to size up before their killing temperature of 12°F (-11°C). Any day now, we’ll start harvesting fall leeks (King Richard and Lincoln), keeping the winter-hardy ones (Tadorna) for the winter.

DIY weather-forecasting

I recommend learning your local weather patterns by keeping records and watching what happens. Here’s what I’ve learned about ours:

Our mid-Atlantic climate is controlled by three weather systems,

  • mainly by moisture from the Gulf of Mexico,
  • the Bermuda High Pressure area in summer,
  • and recurrent waves of cold Canadian air in winter.
Beds after rain, Photo Wren Vile

Rain (statistically fairly evenly distributed throughout the year in our county) has slight peaks in January, February and March, and again in early June and August.

Some parts of our area can experience long periods of drought. September-November is the drier season but it’s also the hurricane season, so the net result is very variable.

We use Wunderground.com  but subtract 5F° from their forecast night lows for our nearest town, and mentally downgrade the chance of rain by 10%, as rain often passes us by as it scoots along the river valley north of us.

Blackberry leaf with frost.
Photo by Ezra Freeman

Our average first frost date is October 14. Actually from our own records it has averaged 10/20 (13 years of our own records). So it’s time to start thinking about frost. It’s good to be prepared.

According to Dave’s Garden in Louisa County where I live, the threshold of 36°F (2°C) has a 50% likelihood on Oct 3; the 32°F (0°C) threshold has a 50% likelihood by Oct 13 and the 28°F (-2°C) threshold is as likely as unlikely by Oct 27. The 90% chances occur by Oct 14, Oct 28 and Nov 12 respectively.

Another great website for local weather info is WeatherSpark.

Now that climate change is here, it pays to be ready for weather different from what we have experienced previously. Keeping records helps, as does having good thermometers for air and soil.

Four Ranges of Cold-Hardy Crops for Harvest at Various Stages of Winter

This simple model helps reduce confusion and set priorities

1. Crops to harvest before cold fall weather (32°-25°F) and store indoors:

Michihili Chinese Cabbage. Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Chicory for chicons or heads; crosnes/Chinese artichokes, dry beans,  Chinese cabbage, peanuts, “White” Peruvian potatoes at 32°F (0°C) approximately, pumpkins, seed crops, sweet potatoes at 50°F (10°C), winter squash.

2. Crops to keep alive in the ground into winter to 22°-15°F (-6°C to -9°C), then harvest.

Bucket of freshly harvested Detroit Dark Red beets for storage.
Photo Pam Dawling

Store: Beets before 15-20°F (-9.5 to -7°C), cabbage, carrots before 12° F (-11°C), celeriac before 20°F (-7°C), kohlrabi before 15°F (-9.5°C), winter radish including daikon before 20°F (-7°C), rutabagas, turnips before 20°F (-7°C).

Use soon: Asian greens, broccoli, cabbage, chard, lettuce, radishes

3. Hardy crops to store in the ground and harvest during the winter.

Using a sturdy digging fork to harvest leeks in December.
Photo Pam Dawling

In zone 7, such crops need to be hardy to 0°-10°F (-17.8°C to -12.3°C): Collards, horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, leeks, parsnips, scallions, spinach.

4. Overwinter crops for spring harvests before the main season.

A stormy winter day, garlic, rowcovered spinach beds and our hoophouse.
Photo Wren Vile

In zone 7, they need to be hardy to 0°-10°F (-17.8°C to -12.3°C): Cabbage, carrots, chard, collards, garlic and garlic scallions, kale, multiplier onions (potato onions), scallions, spinach.

Frost is more likely at Twin Oaks if:

  • The date is after 10/14 (or before 4/30).
  • The daytime high temperature was less than 70°F (21°C).
  • The sky is clear.
  • The temperature at sunset is less than 50°F (10°C).
  • The dew point forecast is low, close to freezing. Frost is unlikely if the dew point is 43°F or more.
  • The Wunderground 3.30pm forecast low for Louisa Northside is 37°F (3°C) or less.
  • The soil is dry and cool.
  • The moon is full or new.
  • There is little or no breeze, although if temperatures are falling fast, the wind is from NW and the sky is clear, then polar air may be moving in, and we’ll get a hard freeze.
Ice on the pond.
Credit Ezra Freeman

Frost Alert Card

For just this time of year, we keep a Frost Alert Card reminding us which crops to pay attention to if a frost threatens. We check the forecast online at 3.30 pm (we find that’s late enough to be fairly accurate about night temperatures and early enough to give us time to get vulnerable crops covered).

The big decision is the triage of harvest/cover/let go. Our list is not just crops that will die with the first frost but also ones that will soon need covering as temperatures decrease.

  • Cover lettuce, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, beans, Chinese cabbage, pak choy, lettuce and celery.
  • Harvest crops listed above that can’t or won’t be covered.
  • Harvest all ripe tomatoes, eggplant, corn, limas, cowpeas, okra, melons.
  • Harvest peppers facing the open sky, regardless of color. (Often only the top of the plant will get frosted).
  • Check winter squash and harvest any very exposed squash.
  • Set up sprinklers for the night, on tomatoes, peppers and a cluster of beds with high value crops.
Peppers that are protected by leaves can survive a light frost. Photo Pam Dawling

We really like this pepper strategy we have developed: by picking just the peppers exposed to the sky, we reduce the immediate workload (and the immediate pile up of peppers in the cooler!) and we often get a couple of milder weeks after the first frost before the next. By then the top layer of leaves that got frosted the first time will have died and a whole new layer of peppers will be exposed and need harvesting. This way we get fewer peppers at once, and a higher percentage of ripe peppers, which have so much more flavor.

Our overhead sprinkler strategy is useful if a frost is coming early when we still have many tomatoes we’d like to vine-ripen. Keep the sprinkler running until the sun is shining on the plant sin the morning, or the sir temperature is above freezing again. The constant supply of water during the night does two things. First water gives off heat as it freezes. Yes, really. It’s easier to understand ice taking in heat to melt, but the flip side is that water gives off heat as it freezes. This latent heat of freezing helps warm the crops. And if ice does form, the shell of ice around the plants stops more cold damage happening.

Frost Alert List

Task

Crop

Notes

 

Harvest all edible

Asparagus beans

 

Harvest all edible

Eggplant

 

Harvest all edible

Okra

 

Harvest all edible

Tomatoes

Including green ones

Harvest all edible

Peppers exposed to the sky

 

Harvest all edible

West Indian gherkins

 

Harvest all edible

Pickling cucumbers

 

Harvest all edible

Corn

 

Harvest all edible

Beans #4, 5, 6, then cover

Uncover once mild again

 

 

 

Thick row cover

Squash

Spring hoops or none. Ditto

Thick row cover

Slicing cucumbers

Spring hoops or none. Ditto

Thick row cover

Celery

Double hoops – leave covered

Thick row cover

Last lettuce bed

Double hoops – leave covered

Set sprinklers

Slicer tomatoes

Overnight from before 32F till after sun shines on plants

Set sprinklers

Roma paste tomatoes and peppers

Ditto

Set sprinklers

Other vulnerable raised bed crops

Ditto
Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. Pick the green and the ripe ones before a frost.
Photo Pan Dawling

Cold Weather Crop Protection

  1. Rowcover – thick 1.25 oz rowcover gives about 6F (3.3C) degrees of frost protection. Use hoops.
  2. Low tunnels and Quick Hoops are wider version of using rowcover. They need the edges weighting down. Best for climates where the crops are being stored in the ground until spring, when they start growing again. Less useful in climates like ours which have very variable winter temperatures, and are warm enough that we realistically expect to harvest during the winter, not just before and after.
  3. Caterpillar tunnels – 2 beds plus 1 path, tall enough to walk in. Rope holds cover in place, no sandbags.
  4. High tunnels (= hoophouses), single or double layer. Double layer gives 8F (4.5C) degrees of protection, plus plants can survive 14F/8C colder than they can outside, without extra rowcover; at least 21F/12C colder than outside with thick rowcover. Leafy crops are not weather-beaten. We strongly believe in two layers of plastic and no inner tunnels (rowcovers) unless the night will be 8°F (-13°C) or colder outdoors.

Hoophouse Notes

Salad greens in a hoophouse in zone 7 can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (-10°C). A test year: Lettuce, Mizuna, Turnips, Russian kales, Senposai, Tyee spinach, Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy survived a hoophouse temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) without rowcover, -2.2°F (-19°C) with. Brite Lights chard got frozen leaf stems.

Rolls of rowcover in our hoophouse ready to pull over the beds on very cold nights.
Photo Wren Vile

Other Posts on These Topics

10/18/16 Getting Ready for Frost

10/21/19 Preparing for Frost and Cold Weather

10/19/20 Harvest and Maturity Indicators in Vegetable Harvests.

10/16/18 Season Extension and Frost Preparations

Winter Preparations for Vegetable Gardens

 

Frosty daikon radish
Photo by Bridget Aleshire

Winter-Kill Temperatures

My annual blogpost of Winter-Kill Temperatures for Cold-Hardy Vegetables is always very popular. In fact, it’s my most popular title! Usually searches for this info increase in October and peak in early November, so here are quick links for those of you who have been meaning to look something up.

Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2020

Winter Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2019

Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2018

Winter Kill Temperatures of Winter-Hardy Vegetables 2016

Trimming roots from a leek in December.
Photo Pam Dawling

For several years, starting in 2012, my friend and neighboring grower Ken Bezilla of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and I have been keeping records of how well our crops do in the colder season. Ken provided much of the original information, and has suggested the morbidly named Death Bed idea: set aside a small bed and plant a few of each plant in it to audition for winter hardiness. Note each increasingly cold minimum temperature and when the various crops die of cold, to fine-tune your planting for next year (and leave me a comment!) Each year I update the list, based on new things I learned during the recent winter.

We are in zone 7a, with an average annual minimum temperature of 0-5°F (-18°C to -15°C).

The winter 2019-2020 was mild, with our lowest temperature being a single night at 12°F (-11°C). The Koji greens became completely unmarketable but did not completely die. Yukina Savoy is indeed hardier (as I expected), being OK down to 10°F (-12°C). We had one night at 13°F (-10°C) and two each at 17°F (-8°C), 18°F (-8°C also) and 19°F (-7°C). That winter I noted the death of rhubarb stems and leaves at 25°F (-4°C), rather than 22°F (-6°C), as I noted a year or two ago. I also added some cover crop hardiness temperatures.

Rhubarb in spring.
Photo Kathryn Simmons

I also learned that there is more damage when the weather switches suddenly from warm to cold. And that the weatherman in Raleigh, NC says it needs 3 hours at the critical temperature to do damage. Also note that repeated cold temperatures can kill off crops that can survive a single dip to a low temperature, and that cold winds, or cold wet weather can destroy plants quicker than simple cold. All greens do a lot better with row cover to protect them against cold drying winds.

Winter hoophouse lettuce
Photo Kathryn Simmons

It’s worth noting that in a double-layer hoophouse (8F/5C warmer at night than outside) plants can survive 14F/8C colder than they can outside, without extra rowcover; at least 21F/12C colder than outside with thick rowcover

Salad greens in a hoophouse in zone 7 can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (-10°C). A test year: Lettuce, Mizuna, Turnips, Russian kales, Senposai, Tyee spinach, Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy survived a hoophouse temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) without rowcover, -2.2°F (-19°C) with. Bright Lights chard got frozen leaf stems.

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Seeking Reader Participation

Your experience with your soils, microclimates and rain levels may lead you to use different temperatures. I’d love to hear from readers if they’ve found my numbers work for them, or if they have a different experience. You can leave a comment here, and it will appear on the website, for others to consider. Or you can fill out a Comment Page and only I will see it, although I’ll pass on the information without your name, if I think others would like to know too.

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Preparing for winter

Rowcover rolling with crank handle.
Photo Rodaew Institute

I’ve also written posts about winter preparations

Getting ready for frost. This post includes info on DIY weather-forecasting, our Frost Prediction checklist, and our Frost Alert Card. Also a link to a 126 page book which includes explanations of freezes and frosts to help us make sense of advice we’ve not understood. FrostProtectionFundamentalsPracticeandEconomicsFAO.pdf

Preparing for Frost and Cold Weather. This post includes our Frost Alert Card, a Frost Predictions checklist of what to do when the first fall frost is expected; how to use sprinklers overnight to stop tomatoes from freezing; four ranges of cold-hardiness (some crops can wait in the garden till it gets colder); and different levels of crop protection, including rowcover, low tunnels, Quick Hoops, caterpillar tunnels and hoophouses (aka high tunnels).

Season Extension and Frost Preparations. This post includes my Season Extension slideshow; the Frost Alert Card and Frost Predictions checklist again; a diagram of our winter double hoop system to hold rowcover in place during the worst weather;

Double hoop system for winter rowcover.
Pam Dawling

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Changing Winter Temperatures

Here’s an article from the Virginia Mercury by Sarah Vogelsong, giving info about changing winter temperatures, particularly later fall frosts in Virginia:

The frozen Potomac River. (Sarah Vogelsong/Virginia Mercury)

Autumn’s first frost is falling later. For farmers, the consequences are wide-ranging

by Sarah Vogelsong, November 3, 2020

Halloween has come and gone. The clocks have been set back. Every evening darkness falls just a little bit earlier.

But for much of Virginia, the first frost still remains elusive.

Over the past century, the average date of the first frost has been moving progressively backward throughout the commonwealth, today landing a week or more later than it did at the turn of the 20th century.

“This is one of the clearest signs of not only the changing climate but … its impact on our systems,” said Jeremy Hoffman, who as chief scientist at the Science Museum of Virginia conducts extensive research on climate change in Virginia. “It’s not just here, it’s everywhere.”

As global temperatures have warmed, largely due to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, frost seasons have shrunk. The Fourth National Climate Assessment released by the Trump administration in 2018 reported that “the length of the frost-free season, from the last freeze in spring to the first freeze of autumn, has increased for all regions since the early 1900s.”

How the shifts have played out in different states with different geographic, ecological and topographic features varies. Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show that between 1895 and 2016, the average date of the first fall frost moved back by 7.1 days in Virginia.

On the local level, the changes may be even starker. Estimates of how much the average date has changed vary depending on the time range used and how scientists fit a line to their data points, but in most Virginia cities, they show unmistakable upward trends. Looking at first frost dates between 1970 and 2016, Climate Central, a nonprofit staffed by scientists and journalists, calculated that on average, the first frost today is 5.9 days later in Lynchburg, 8.9 days later in Harrisonburg, 12.8 days later in Roanoke, 15 days later in Charlottesville and 18.5 days later in Richmond. While their data show Norfolk’s first frost occurring about six days earlier on average, Hoffman said that longer-range data going back to 1940 show the first frost moving back by about five days. Still, he cautioned, variation does occur: “Localized things like weather” can “work against that dominant signal in datasets like these.”

First freeze dates for Richmond, 1930-2019. (Jeremy Hoffman, Science Museum of Virginia)

The implications of the shifts in the freezing season go beyond a few more days to enjoy warm weather, say scientists and policymakers. Perhaps most affected are farmers, whose livelihood is intimately tied to fluctuations in both short-term weather and long-term climate.

“Some things you can sort of manage around and some things you can’t,” said Wade Thomason, a professor of crop and soil environmental science at Virginia Tech and the state’s grain crops extension specialist.

For most farmers, the last frost of the year in the spring is the riskier of the season’s two endpoints, falling as it does when most plants are young and more vulnerable to temperature extremes. But ongoing changes in the first frost in the fall also have ripple effects.

“It can be a beneficial thing for some instances. We might get more grazing days for livestock operations in a year,” said Thomason. For some crops, like double-cropped soybeans that are planted following the harvest of another crop — typically a grain like wheat — “it can extend the season.”

Other effects are less immediately apparent. Many wheat farmers who typically plant in mid-October have begun to push back their planting dates to ensure plants don’t grow too quickly during the freezing months, making them susceptible to disease or falling over in the field. Specific types of forage rely on long periods of cool weather to thrive: in Northern Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, farmers have noticed that orchard-grass stands are only living for four to five years instead of the once-standard 10.

“For years now, we’ve heard from farmers that the stands don’t persist like they used to,” said Thomason. Research has shown that one factor contributing to less persistence is warmer nighttime temperatures, he added, but because most operations rely on cultivars developed decades ago, “we haven’t adapted orchard grass that thrives in a warmer climate.”

Other crops affected by longer warm seasons? Tree fruits and wine grapes

“Virginia’s one of those places that we expect to get hotter and we also expect to get wetter,” said Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies whose research includes the effects of climate change on vineyards. Neither of those conditions are necessarily good for high-quality wine prospects, he said. Furthermore, farmers working in these areas face special risks because of the long time to maturity of their crops.

“Those are parts of the agricultural world that adaptation eventually becomes a lot more challenging, because you can’t switch crops from year to year,” he said. “You have to make a bet on something and wait four years to see if it pays off.”

Regardless of their specialty, all farmers face another consequence of shorter freeze seasons: more weeds and more pests.

“With longer growing seasons, with these warmer winters, the populations of insects are increasing, the mortality is lower, they can produce more generations a year, and that potentially presents a problem for agriculture and plants in general,” said Cook.

Those effects can be seen on the ground, said Thomason: “Maybe 30 years ago, we could stop worrying about them in early October, and now it may be a week or 10 days later.”

https://www.virginiamercury.com/ Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news outlets supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Robert Zullo for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on https://facebook.com/thevirginiamercury and https://twitter.com/MercuryVirginia

Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site.

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Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2020

Overwintered Vates kale in central Virginia in March.
Photo Nina Gentle

At the Organic Association of Kentucky Conference, I gave a a presentation on Winter High Tunnel and Outdoor Vegetable Production. You can see it here. Click on the diagonal arrow icon to see it full screen, then click on the right pointing triangular arrow

Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2020

I keep records of how well our crops do in the colder season, both outdoors and in our double-layer hoophouse. I note each increasingly cold minimum temperature and when the various crops die of cold, to fine-tune our planning for next year. We are in zone 7a, with an average annual minimum temperature of 0-5°F (-18°C to -15°C). 

The winter 2019-2020 has been mild, with our lowest temperature being a single night at 12°F (-11°C). The Koji became completely unmarketable but did not completely die. Yukina Savoy is indeed hardier, being OK down to 10°F (-12°C). We had one night at 13°F (-10°C) and two each at 17°F (-8°C), 18°F (-8°C also) and 19°F (-7°C).

This winter I noted the death of rhubarb stems and leaves at 25°F (-4°C), rather than 22°F (-6°C), as I noted a year or two ago.

In early January 2018, we had some extremely cold temperatures of -8°F and -9°F (-22°C and -23°C). The winter of 2018-2019 was not as brutal. Our lowest temperatures were 6°F (-14°C) in late January, 8°F (-13°C) in December 2018 and a couple of 11°F (-12°C). I found that senposai is more cold-tolerant than I had thought. Averaging our winter low over those three winters gives 3.2°F (-16°C), completely within the zone 7a range.

My other results from other years still hold up.

I also learned that there is more damage when the weather switches suddenly from warm to cold. And that the weatherman in Raleigh, NC says it needs 3 hours at the critical temperature to do damage.

Radicchio seeds from Seeds from Italy

Notes on Chicories and Endives

We gave up growing chicories and endives because we really didn’t like the bitterness. I decided to do some more online research to make sure I wasn’t spreading untruths. Chicories and endives fall into two groups, but they are confusing because the common names sometimes suggest the opposite group than they are botanically. Here’s the best info I have. If you know differently, please leave a comment.

Cichorium intybus, commonly called chicories, are mostly heading crops. The group includes radicchio, both Treviso and Chioggia (hardy to about 20°F (-7°C). Belgian Witloof endive (the kind for forcing chicons) is also a chicory. It dies at 25°F (-4°C). Sugarloaf chicory is the least hardy chicory, and dies at 27°F (-3°C).

Cichorium endivia, commonly called endives, are mostly loose-leaf crops, less cold-hardy than intybus types (chicories). This group includes Frisée types and escaroles, which are also known as Batavian endives. They generally survive down to 22°F (-6°C), although Perfect and President endives can survive down to 10°F (-12°C) – can anyone confirm or deny this?

Using the List

Unless otherwise stated, these are killing temperatures of crops outdoors without any rowcover. All greens do a lot better with protection against cold drying winds. Note that repeated cold temperatures can kill crops that can survive a single dip to a low temperature, and that cold winds, or cold wet weather can destroy plants quicker than simple cold. Your own experience with your soils, microclimates and rain levels may lead you to use different temperatures in your crop planning.

Hoophouse beds in November.
Photo Ethan Hirsh

Hoophouse Notes

Our double-plastic hoophouse keeps night time temperatures about 8F (4.5C) degrees warmer than outdoors, sometimes 10F (5.5C) degrees warmer. Plus, plants tolerate lower temperatures inside a hoophouse. The soil stays warmer; the plants recover in the warmer daytime conditions (it seems to be the night+day average temperature that counts);

In the hoophouse (8F (4.5C) degrees warmer than outside) plants without extra rowcover can survive 14F (7.7C) degrees colder than they could survive outside; with thick rowcover (1.25oz Typar/Xavan) at least 21F (11.6C) degrees colder than outside.

For example, salad greens in our hoophouse can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (-10°C). Russian kales, lettuce, mizuna, senposai, spinach, tatsoi, turnips, Yukina Savoy survived a hoophouse temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) without rowcover, -2.2°F (-19°C) with. Bright Lights chard got frozen leaf stems.

Young Bright Lights chard.
Photo Pam Dawling

Lettuce varieties for a solar-heated winter greenhouse or hoophouse in zone 7a: (hardiest are in bold) Buckley, Ezrilla, Green Forest, Green Star, Hampton, Hyper Red Rumpled Wave, Marvel of Four Seasons, Merlot, New Red Fire, North Pole bibb, Oscarde, Outredgeous, Pirat, Red Cross bibb, Red Sails, Red Salad Bowl, Red Tinged Winter, Revolution, Rouge d’Hiver, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta bibb, Tango, Winter Marvel, Winter Wonderland.

Outdoor killing temperatures of crops (unprotected unless stated)

35°F (2°C):  Basil.

32°F (0°C):  Bush beans, some cauliflower curds, corn, cowpeas, cucumbers, eggplant, limas, melons, okra, some pak choy, peanuts, peppers, potato vines, squash vines, sweet potato vines, tomatoes.

27°F (-3°C): Many cabbage varieties, Sugarloaf chicory (takes only light frosts).

25°F (-4°C): Some cabbage, chervil, Belgian Witloof chicory roots for chicons, and hearts, Chinese Napa cabbage (Blues), dill (Fernleaf), some fava beans (Windsor), annual fennel, some mustards (Red Giant, Southern Curled) and Asian greens (Maruba Santoh, mizuna, most pak choy, Tokyo Bekana), onion scallions (some are much more hardy), radicchio, rhubarb stems and leaves.

Tokyo bekana in our hoophouse.
Photo Twin Oaks Community

22°F (-6°C): Some arugula (some varieties are hardier), Bright Lights chard, endive (Escarole may be a little more frost-hardy than Frisée), large leaves of lettuce (protected hearts and small plants will survive colder temperatures).

20°F (-7°C): Some beets (Bulls Blood, Chioggia,), broccoli heads (maybe OK to 15°F (-9.5°C)), Brussels sprouts, some cabbages (the insides may still be good even if the outer leaves are damaged), some cauliflower varieties, celeriac, celtuce (stem lettuce), some head lettuce, some mustards/Asian greens (Tendergreen, Tyfon Holland greens), flat leaf parsley, radicchio, both Treviso and Chioggia, radishes (Cherry Belle), most turnips (Noir d’Hiver is the most cold-tolerant variety).

Large oat plants will get serious cold damage. Oats seedlings die at 17°F (-8°C)

Canadian (spring) field peas are hardy to 10-20°F (-12 to -7°C).

15°F (-9.5°C): Some beets (Albina Verduna, Lutz Winterkeeper), beet leaves, some broccoli, some cabbage (Kaitlin, Tribute), covered celery (Ventura), red chard, cilantro, fava beans (Aquadulce Claudia), Red Russian and White Russian kales, kohlrabi, some lettuce, especially medium-sized plants with 4-10 leaves (Marvel of Four Seasons, Olga, Rouge d’hiver, Tango, Winter Density), curly leaf parsley, rutabagas (American Purple Top Yellow, Laurentian), broad leaf sorrel, most covered turnips, winter cress.

Young Cylindra beets.
Photo Wren VIle

12°F (-11°C): Some beets (Cylindra,), some broccoli perhaps, Brussels sprouts, some cabbage (January King, Savoy types), carrots (Danvers, Oxheart), most collards, some fava beans (mostly cover crop varieties), garlic tops if fairly large, Koji greens, most fall or summer varieties of leeks (Lincoln, King Richard), large tops of potato onions, covered rutabagas, some turnips (Purple Top).

10°F (-12°C): Covered beets, Purple Sprouting broccoli for spring harvest, a few cabbages (Deadon), chard (green chard is hardier than multi-colored types), some collards (Morris Heading can survive at least one night at 10F), Belle Isle upland cress, some endive (Perfect, President), young Bronze fennel, Blue Ridge kale, probably Komatsuna, some leeks (American Flag, Jaune du Poiteau), some covered lettuce (Pirat, Red Salad Bowl, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta, Winter Marvel), covered winter radish (Daikon, China Rose, Shunkyo Semi-Long survive 10°F/-12°C), Senposai leaves (the core of the plant may survive 8°F/-13°C), large leaves of savoyed spinach (more hardy than smooth-leafed varieties), Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy.

Oats cover crop of a medium size die around 10°F (-12°C). Large oat plants will die completely at 6°F (-17°C) or even milder than that.

5°F (-15°C): Garlic tops even if small, some kale (Winterbor, Westland Winter), some leeks (Bulgarian Giant, Laura), some bulb onions, potato onions and other multiplier onions, smaller leaves of savoy spinach and broad leaf sorrel. Many of the Even’ Star Ice Bred greens varieties are hardy down to 6°F (-14°C), a few unprotected lettuces if small (Winter Marvel, Tango, North Pole, Green Forest).

Garlic shoots in January.
Photo Pam Dawling

0°F (-18°C): Chives, some collards (Blue Max, Winner), corn salad (mâche), garlic, horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, Even’ Star Ice-Bred Smooth Leaf kale, a few leeks (Alaska, Durabel, Tadorna); some bulb onions, yellow potato onions, some onion scallions, (Evergreen Winter Hardy White, White Lisbon), parsnips (probably even colder), salad burnet, salsify (?), some spinach (Bloomsdale Savoy, Olympia). Walla Walla onions sown in late summer are said to be hardy down to -10°F (-23°C), but I don’t trust below 0°F (-18°C)

Crimson clover is hardy down to 0°F (-18°C) or slightly colder

 -5°F (-19°C): Leaves of overwintering varieties of cauliflower, Vates kale survives although some leaves may be too damaged to use.

-10°F (-23°C) Austrian Winter Field Peas and Crimson clover (used as cover crops).

-15°F (-26°C) Hairy vetch cover crop – some say down to -30°F (-34°C)

-20°F (-29°C) Dutch White clover cover crops – or even -30°F (-34°C)

 -30°F to -40°F (-34°C to -40°C): Narrow leaf sorrel, Claytonia and some cabbage are said to be hardy in zone 3. I have no personal experience of this.

 -40°F (-40°C) Winter wheat and winter rye (cover crops).

Winter Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2019

Baby greens in a cold frame in January.
Photo Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

I keep records of how well our crops do in the colder season, both outdoors and in our double-layer hoophouse. I note each increasingly cold minimum temperature and when the various crops die of cold, to fine-tune our planning for next year. We are in zone 7a, with an average annual minimum temperature of 0-5°F (-18°C to -15°C).  We had some extremely cold temperatures of -8°F and -9°F (-22°C and -23°C) in early January 2018. The winter of 2018-2019 was not as brutal. Our lowest temperatures were 6°F (-14°C) 1/31/19, 8°F (-13°C) 12/11/18 and a couple of 11°F (-12°C). This year I found that senposai is  more cold-tolerant than I had thought. otherwise I haven’t got much new news here. My results from other years hold up.

Unless otherwise stated, these are killing temperatures of crops outdoors without any rowcover. All greens do a lot better with protection against cold drying winds. Note that repeated cold temperatures can kill crops that can survive a single dip to a low temperature, and that cold winds, or cold wet weather can destroy plants quicker than simple cold. Your own experience with your soils, microclimates and rain levels may lead you to use different temperatures in your crop planning.

Hoophouse Notes

Our double-plastic hoophouse keeps night time temperatures about 8F (4.5C) degrees warmer than outdoors, sometimes 10F (5.5C) warmer. Plus, plants tolerate lower temperatures inside a hoophouse. The soil stays warmer; the plants recover in the warmer daytime conditions (it seems to be the night+day average temperature that counts);

Winter crops snug in our hoophouse in a December snowstorm.
Photo Pam Dawling

In the hoophouse (8F warmer than outside) plants without extra rowcover can survive 14F colder than they could survive outside; with thick rowcover (1.25oz Typar/Xavan) at least 21F colder than outside.

For example, salad greens in our hoophouse can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (-10°C). Russian kales, lettuce, mizuna, senposai, spinach, tatsoi, turnips, Yukina Savoy survived a hoophouse temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) without rowcover, -2.2°F (-19°C) with. Bright Lights chard got frozen leaf stems.

Lettuce varieties for a solar-heated winter greenhouse or hoophouse in zone 7a: (hardiest are in bold) Buckley, Ezrilla, Green Forest, Green Star, Hampton, Hyper Red Rumpled Wave, Marvel of Four Seasons, Merlot, New Red Fire, North Pole bibb, Oscarde, Outredgeous, Pirat, Red Cross bibb, Red Sails, Red Salad Bowl, Red Tinged Winter, Revolution, Rouge d’Hiver, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta bibb, Tango, Winter Marvel, Winter Wonderland.

Hoophouse lettuce Red Tinged Winter and Tango (and senposai) in our hoophouse in December.
Photo Pam Dawling

Outdoor killing temperatures of crops (unprotected unless stated)

35°F (2°C):  Basil.

32°F (0°C):  Bush beans, cauliflower curds, corn, cowpeas, cucumbers, eggplant, limas, melons, okra, some pak choy, peanuts, peppers, potato vines, squash vines, sweet potato vines, tomatoes.

27°F (-3°C): Many cabbage varieties, Sugarloaf chicory (takes only light frosts).

 25°F (-4°C): Some cabbage, chervil, chicory roots for chicons, and hearts, Chinese Napa cabbage (Blues), dill (Fernleaf), endive (Escarole more frost-hardy than Frisée), some fava beans (Windsor), annual fennel, some mustards (Red Giant, Southern Curled) and Asian greens (Maruba Santoh, mizuna, most pak choy, Tokyo Bekana), onion scallions (some are much more hardy), radicchio.

22°F (-6°C): Some arugula (some varieties are hardier), Bright Lights chard, large leaves of lettuce (protected hearts and small plants will survive colder temperatures), rhubarb stems and leaves.

20°F (-7°C): Some beets (Bulls Blood, Chioggia,), broccoli heads (maybe OK to 15°F (-9.5°C)), Brussels sprouts, some cabbages (the insides may still be good even if the outer leaves are damaged), celeriac, celtuce (stem lettuce), some head lettuce, some mustards/Asian greens (Tendergreen, Tyfon Holland greens), flat leaf parsley, radishes (Cherry Belle), most turnips (Noir d’Hiver is the most cold-tolerant variety).

Large oat plants will get serious cold damage. Oats seedlings die at 17°F (-8°C)

Canadian (spring) field peas are hardy to 10-20°F (-12 to -7°C).

Closing rowcovers after a winter spinach harvest.
Photo Wren Vile

15°F (-9.5°C): Some beets (Albina Verduna, Lutz Winterkeeper), beet leaves, some broccoli, some cabbage (Kaitlin, Tribute), covered celery (Ventura), red chard, cilantro, endive, fava beans (Aquadulce Claudia), Red Russian and White Russian kales, kohlrabi, some lettuce, especially medium-sized plants with 4-10 leaves (Marvel of Four Seasons, Olga, Rouge d’hiver, Tango, Winter Density), curly leaf parsley, rutabagas (American Purple Top Yellow, Laurentian) if not covered, broad leaf sorrel, most covered turnips, winter cress.

12°F (-11°C): Some beets (Cylindra,), some broccoli, Brussels sprouts, some cabbage (January King, Savoy types), carrots (Danvers, Oxheart), most collards, some fava beans (mostly cover crop varieties), garlic tops if fairly large, most fall or summer varieties of leeks (Lincoln, King Richard), large tops of potato onions, covered rutabagas, some turnips (Purple Top).

Using a sturdy digging fork to harvest leeks in December.
Photo Pam Dawling

10°F (-12°C): Covered beets, Purple Sprouting broccoli for spring harvest, a few cabbages (Deadon), chard (green chard is hardier than multi-colored types), some collards (Morris Heading can survive at least one night at 10F), Belle Isle upland cress, some endive (Perfect, President), young Bronze fennel, probably Komatsuna, some leeks (American Flag, Jaune du Poiteau), some covered lettuce (Pirat, Red Salad Bowl, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta, Winter Marvel), covered winter radish (Daikon, China Rose, Shunkyo Semi-Long survive 10°F/-12°C), Senposai leaves (the core of the plant may survive 8°F/-13°C), large leaves of savoyed spinach (more hardy than smooth-leafed varieties), Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy.

Oats cover crop of a medium size die around 10°F (-12°C). Large oat plants will die completely at 6°F (-17°C) or even milder than that.

Garlic shoots poking through the mulch in January.
Photo Pam Dawling

5°F (-15°C): Garlic tops even if small, some kale (Winterbor, Westland Winter), some leeks (Bulgarian Giant, Laura), some bulb onions, potato onions and other multiplier onions, smaller leaves of savoyed spinach and broad leaf sorrel. Many of the Even’ Star Ice Bred greens varieties are hardy down to 6°F (-14°C), a few unprotected lettuces if small (Winter Marvel, Tango, North Pole, Green Forest).

0°F (-18°C): Chives, some collards (Blue Max, Winner), corn salad (mâche), garlic, horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, Even’ Star Ice-Bred Smooth Leaf  kale, a few leeks (Alaska, Durabel, Tadorna); some bulb onions, yellow potato onions, some onion scallions, (Evergreen Winter Hardy White, White Lisbon), parsnips (probably even colder), salad burnet, salsify (?), some spinach (Bloomsdale Savoy, Olympia). Walla Walla onions sown in late summer are said to be hardy down to -10°F (-23°C), but I don’t trust below 0°F (-18°C)

Crimson clover is hardy down to 0°F (-18°C) or slightly colder

Vates kale with a freeze-killed center January 19 2018. Photo Pam Dawling

 -5°F (-19°C): Leaves of overwintering varieties of cauliflower, Vates kale survives although some leaves may be too damaged to use.

Many of our Vates kale plants survived those cold temperatures Photo Pam Dawling

-10°F (-23°C) Austrian Winter Field Peas and Crimson clover (used as cover crops).

-15°F (-26°C) Hairy vetch cover crop – some say down to -30°F (-34°C)

-20°F (-29°C) Dutch White clover cover crops – or even -30°F (-34°C)

 -30°F to -40°F (-34°C to -40°C): Narrow leaf sorrel, Claytonia and some cabbage are said to be hardy in zone 3. I have no personal experience of this.

 -40°F (-40°C) Winter wheat and winter rye (cover crops).

A hardy cover crop mix of winter rye, hairy vetch and Austrian winter peas.
Photo Bridget Aleshire

March 2020 Update: Click the link

Asian Green for February: Tatsoi

A large tatsoi plant in our hoophouse in December. Photo Kathleen Slattery

Tatsoi is a very cold-hardy green (down to 10°F, –12°C), one of the ones we grow in our hoophouse to feed us after the winter solstice, when the crops have started to be fewer in number and each is less abundant in production rate.  We have also grown this one outdoors in the fall for early winter eating, but no longer do this as the rate of growth inside the hoophouse is much better. In the fall tatsoi will not bolt, but in late winter/early spring it will.

I have been writing about a particular Asian green once a month since last May. To find the other articles, click the category “Asian Greens”.

Like Asian greens in general, tatsoi is a great crop for filling out winter CSA bags or market booths, and ultimately, dinner tables. Because the Asian greens are so varied in color, texture, shape and spiciness, you can add a lot of diversity to your crops by growing a selection that is easy to grow and can all be treated the same way. They are as easy to grow as kale. They germinate at a wide range of temperatures and make fast growth (much faster than lettuce in cold weather!)

Botanically, tatsoi is Brassica rapa var. narinosa, cousin of other turnip family greens such as Chinese cabbage, Tokyo Bekana, pak choy, mizuna and komatsuna. It is a more distant cousin of the Brassica oleracea greens such as Vates kale, Chinese kale and kai-lan, and of crops in the Chinese Mustard family, Brassica juncea (the frilly mustards like Ruby Streaks and Golden Frills).

Tatsoi is a relatively small plant with shiny, dark green spoon-shaped leaves and green-white stems. If given plenty of space it grows as a flat rosette, but if crowded it takes on a flowerpot shape. For sale, the whole plants are cut and the leaves banded together, so crowding them does not at all make them less marketable. It has a pleasant mild flavor.

Young tatsoi plants in our hoophouse.
Photo Bridget Aleshire

Growing Tatsoi

We direct sow and then thin into salad mixes, leaving some to mature at 10″ (25 cm) across for cooking greens.  You can also transplant at 3-4 weeks of age in the fall, at 6″ (15 cm) apart. Although we transplant most of our brassicas, to allow the beds more time without this crop family (which we grow lots of), we direct sow this one, which will have many plants in a small space.

Tatsoi has similar care requirements to other brassicas. Very fertile soils grow the best Asian greens, so turn in leguminous cover crops or compost to provide adequate nutrition. Asian greens are shallow rooted – Pay extra attention to providing enough water to prevent bitter flavors and excess pungency. Expect to provide 1” (2.5 cm) of water per week in cooler weather, 2” (5 cm) during very hot weather.

Do close monitoring for pests, which can build up large populations during late summer. We do nothing special for our tatsoi, but if you have a lot of brassica flea beetles or uncontrolled caterpillars, cover the sowings or new transplants with insect netting such as ProtekNet.

If you are growing tatsoi outdoors in late fall, you could use rowcover to keep your plants alive longer into the winter.

For our hoophouse, we make a first sowing of tatsoi in the very first bed we prepare for winter crops, on 9/6. We make a second sowing in mid-November. The first sowing will feed us for two months, November and December.  The second sowing will feed us for a much shorter period of time: the second half of February, first week of March. It would bolt if we tried to keep it any longer.

It is entirely possible to make sowings between 9/6 and 11/15, and get harvests that last longer than our 11/15 sowing. The only reason we don’t is that we have so many other crops we love.

Kitazawa Seeds have a Red Violet tatsoi/pak choy hybrid, with an upright habit. They classify tatsoi as a type of pak choy/bok choy/pak choi, so if you are perusing their interesting site, this is how to find tatsoi.

Tatsoi ready for harvesting of whole plants.
Photo Pam Dawling

Harvesting Tatsoi

Tatsoi takes 21 days to be big enough for baby salads; 45 days for cooking size.

To harvest, initially we thin the rows to 1″ (2.5 cm), using baby plants in salad mix. Our first sowing provides thinnings from 10/8, one month after sowing. Next we thin to 3″ (7.5 cm), using these also for salad. Our next thinning, to 6″ (15 cm) gives us small plants for cooking. After this, we harvest individual leaves for salad or cooking. The second sowing provides thinnings 12/27-1/21 approximately.

Once we get close to the time the plants would bolt, we pull up whole plants and use them for cooking. We pull the most crowded plants first, giving the others time to grow bigger – they can grow as big as 12″ (30 cm) across. Overcrowding can lead to early bolting.

Overview of Winter Hoophouse Greens

In the big scheme of things, we harvest Tokyo Bekana and Maruba Santoh for heads in December, along with our first tatsoi; our first Yukina Savoy, our Chinese cabbage and Pak Choy in January, our second tatsoi and Yukina Savoy in February and early March.

Non-heading leafy greens such as Senposai, spinach and chard feed us all winter until mid-March when we need the hoophouse space for spring crops. (Read more about Yukina Savoy here in March.)

After Tatsoi

We clear our first tatsoi by 1/14, and use the space to sow our fifth spinach on 1/15. This planting of spinach is to be used as bare root transplants outdoors in March. Our second tatsoi is cleared 3/12 to prepare the space for early summer crops like tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and cucumbers.

Beauty in a tatsoi plant.
Photo Wren Vile

Winter-Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables 2018

2019 Note: I posted my 2019 list of Winter Kill Temperatures of Cold-Hardy Vegetables on April 30, 2019

March 2020 Update: Click the link

Here’s the long version of one of the slideshows I presented on January 13 at the Future Harvest CASA conference. Since I got home, I updated my Winter-Kill Temperatures list, which appears in the slideshow. Compared to my list for 2016, there are a few differences, nothing major. We had some extremely cold weather, as I reported last week with some sorry pictures of lettuces. Now I have some photos of the outdoor crops too. The Vates kale had mixed survival, the rowcovered Reflect and Avon spinach are damaged but OK, the Tadorna leeks are battered but hanging in there (so are we!).

Vates kale which survived temperatures of -8F and -9F outdoors, uncovered.
Photo Pam Dawling
Vates kale with a freeze-killed center January 19 2018.
Photo Pam Dawling

For several years I have been keeping records of how well our crops do in the colder season. I note each increasingly cold minimum temperature and when the various crops die of cold, to fine tune our planting for next year. We had some extremely cold temperatures of -8°F and -9°F (-22°C and -23°C) in early January 2018. We are in zone 7a, with an average annual minimum temperature of 0-5°F (-18°C to -15°C).

Unless otherwise stated, these are killing temperatures of crops outdoors without any rowcover. All greens do a lot better with protection against cold drying winds. Note that repeated cold temperatures can kill crops that can survive a single dip to a low temperature, and that cold winds, or cold wet weather can destroy plants quicker than simple cold. Your own experience with your soils, micro-climates and rain levels may lead you to use different temperatures in your crop planning.

Hoophouse Notes

Our double-skin hoophouse keeps night time temperatures about 8F (4.5C) degrees warmer than outdoors, sometimes 10F (5.5C) warmer. Plus, plants tolerate lower temperatures inside a hoophouse. The soil stays warmer and the plants recover in the warmer daytime conditions (it seems to be the night+day average temperature that counts).

In the hoophouse (8F warmer than outside) plants without extra rowcover can survive 14F colder than they could survive outside; 21F colder than outside with rowcover (1.25oz Typar/Xavan).

For example, salad greens in a hoophouse can survive nights with outdoor lows of 14°F (-10°C) without inner rowcover. Lettuce, mizuna, turnips, Russian kales, Senposai, Tyee spinach, tatsoi, Yukina Savoy survived a hoophouse temperature of 10.4°F (-12°C) without rowcover, -2.2°F (-19°C) with. Bright Lights chard got frozen leaf stems.

Lettuce hardy enough for a solar heated winter hoophouse in zone 7a (hardiest are in bold): Buckley, Ezrilla, Green Forest, Green Star, Hampton, Hyper Red Rumpled Wave, Marvel of Four Seasons, Merlot, New Red Fire, North Pole bibb, Outredgeous, Pirat, Red Cross bibb, Red Sails, Red Salad Bowl, Red Tinged Winter, Revolution, Rouge d’Hiver, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta bibb, Tango, Winter Marvel, Winter Wonderland.

35°F (2°C):  Basil.

32°F (0°C):  Bush beans, cauliflower curds, corn, cowpeas, cucumbers, eggplant, limas, melons, okra, some Pak Choy, peanuts, peppers, potato vines, squash vines, sweet potato vines, tomatoes.

27°F (-3°C): Many cabbage varieties, Sugarloaf chicory (takes only light frosts).

25°F (-4°C): Some cabbage, chervil, chicory roots for chicons, and hearts, Chinese Napa cabbage (Blues), dill (Fernleaf), endive (Escarole more frost-hardy than Frisée), some fava beans (Windsor), annual fennel, some mustards (Red Giant, Southern Curled) and Asian greens (Maruba Santoh, Mizuna, most Pak Choy, Tokyo Bekana), onion scallions (some are much more hardy), radicchio.

Spinach under rowcover, with our hoophouse in the background – crop protection pays!
Photo Pam Dawling

22°F (-6°C): Some arugula (some varieties are hardier), Bright Lights chard, large leaves of lettuce (protected hearts and small plants will survive colder temperatures), rhubarb stems and leaves.

20°F (-7°C): Some beets (Bulls Blood, Chioggia,), broccoli heads (maybe OK to 15F), Brussels sprouts, some cabbages (the insides may still be good even if the outer leaves are damaged), celeriac, celtuce (stem lettuce), some head lettuce, some mustards/Asian greens (Tendergreen, Tyfon Holland greens), flat leaf parsley, radishes (Cherry Belle), most turnips (Noir d’Hiver is the most cold-tolerant variety).

Large oat plants will get serious cold damage. Oats seedlings die at 17°F (-8°C)

Canadian (spring) field peas are hardy to 10-20°F (-12 to -7°C).

15°F (-9.5°C): Some beets (Albina Verduna, Lutz Winterkeeper), beet leaves, some broccoli, some cabbage (Kaitlin, Tribute), covered celery (Ventura), red chard, cilantro, endive, fava beans (Aquadulce Claudia), Red Russian and White Russian kales, kohlrabi, some lettuce, especially medium-sized plants with 4-10 leaves (Marvel of Four Seasons, Olga, Rouge d’hiver, Tango, Winter Density), curly leaf parsley, rutabagas (American Purple Top Yellow, Laurentian) if not covered, broad leaf sorrel, most covered turnips, winter cress.

12°F (-11°C): Some beets (Cylindra,), some broccoli, Brussels sprouts, some cabbage (January King, Savoy types), carrots (Danvers, Oxheart), most collards, some fava beans (mostly cover crop varieties), garlic tops if fairly large, most fall or summer varieties of leeks (Lincoln, King Richard), large tops of potato onions, covered rutabagas, Senposai leaves (the core of the plant may survive 10°F/-12°C), some turnips (Purple Top).

10°F (-12°C): Covered beets, Purple Sprouting broccoli for spring harvest, a few cabbages (Deadon), chard (green chard is hardier than multi-colored types), some collards (Morris Heading can survive at least one night at 10F), Belle Isle upland cress, some endive (Perfect, President), young Bronze fennel, probably Komatsuna, some leeks (American Flag, Jaune du Poiteau), some covered lettuce (Pirat, Red Salad Bowl, Salad Bowl, Sylvesta, Winter Marvel), covered winter radish (Daikon, China Rose, Shunkyo Semi-Long survive 10°F/-12°C), large leaves of savoyed spinach (more hardy than flat leafed varieties), Tatsoi, Yukina Savoy.

Oats cover crop of a medium size die around 10°F (-12°C). Large oat plants will die completely at 6°F (-17°C) or even milder than that.

5°F (-15°C): Garlic tops even if small, some kale (Winterbor, Westland Winter), some leeks (Bulgarian Giant, Laura), some bulb onions, potato onions and other multiplier onions, smaller leaves of savoyed spinach and broad leaf sorrel. Many of the Even’Star Ice Bred greens varieties are hardy down to 6°F (-14°C), a few unprotected lettuces if small (Winter Marvel, Tango, North Pole, Green Forest).

Tadorna leeks, struggling but not dead, after -9F.
Photo Pam Dawling

0°F (-18°C): Chives, some collards (Blue Max, Winner), corn salad (mache), garlic, horseradish, Jerusalem artichokes, a few leeks (Alaska, Durabel, Tadorna); some bulb onions, yellow potato onions, some onion scallions, (Evergreen Winter Hardy White, White Lisbon), parsnips (probably even colder), salad burnet, salsify (?), some spinach (Bloomsdale Savoy, Olympia, Tyee). Walla Walla onions sown in late summer are said to be hardy down to -10°F (-23°C), but I don’t trust below 0°F (-18°C)

Crimson clover is hardy down to 0°F (-18°C) or slightly colder

-5°F (-19°C): Leaves of overwintering varieties of cauliflower die, Vates kale survives although some leaves may be too damaged to use.

Reflect spinach in the open got damaged but not killed at -9F.
Photo Pam Dawling

-10°F (-23°C) Austrian Winter Field Peas and Crimson clover (used as cover crops).

-15°F (-26°C) Hairy vetch cover crop – some say down to -30°F (-34°C)

-20°F (-29°C) Dutch White clover cover crops – or even -30°F (-34°C)

-30°F to -40°F (-34°C to -40°C): Narrow leaf sorrel, Claytonia and some cabbage are said to be hardy in zone 3

-40°F (-40°C) Winter wheat and winter rye (cover crops).

A cover crop of winter wheat untroubled by -9F.
Photo Pam Dawling