Growing Vegetables in the Cold: The Winter Market Gardener

Living in the mountains of Quebec, Canada, has its perks. Mostly tucked away from the urban sprawl, we are surrounded by natural beauty and truly experience all four seasons. The summers are busy with locals and tourists enjoying outdoor activities, cultural events, and an abundance of farmers’ markets. Eating locally grown food is easy in the summer and fall. But after the colorful leaves fade in October, the outdoor markets pack it in for another season, and the snow flies. If you’re on skis or snowshoes in Quebec, there is no shortage of tracks to follow through the woods. But the abundance of fresh, local food hits a dead end. That’s life in colder climates; most farmers cram their growing into six months, and in the winter, they rest.

Is It Possible to Grow Vegetables During Winter?

It doesn’t have to be this way; small-scale, regenerative farmers Jean-Martin Fortier and Catherine Sylvestre are leading the change. Fortier co-founded the research farm, la Ferme des Quatre-Temps (The Four-Season Farm) in Hemmingford, QC; Sylvestre, a professional agronomist, is the farm manager and trains future farmers. They have co-authored The Winter Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Year-Round Harvests to help improve the agricultural landscape with more all-season gardens.

“Our goal is to show how we can eat locally year-round,” explains Sylvestre. “We want to develop techniques that allow people in northern climates always to buy food in their community and never have to import any vegetables.”

Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? It also seems impossible for anyone looking at a winter storm rage outside their windows. But growing vegetables and harvesting them throughout the cold seasons is doable. Sylvestre and Fortier have spent years testing various crops and growing methods on their farm; they know it works. They successfully grow over 30 vegetables at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps in the winter! While the book’s target audience includes small-scale farmers and market gardeners living in cooler climates, home growers can apply the same ideas and principles in their garden beds. The book even offers a small-scale home garden plan for the fall.

“What we wanted was to [share that knowledge] so that farmers can start at the point where we are and not have to do all of these trials and repeat the mistakes we made because they can be quite costly,” says Sylvestre.

Is Winter Gardening Costly?

Many people in cold regions assume winter growing has a hefty price tag. However, The Winter Market Gardener offers economical solutions that don’t involve state-of-the-art greenhouses and expensive electricity bills. Instead, Fortier and Sylvestre discuss using simple shelters to protect crops from the cold. These can be used individually or in frigid temperatures, combined and layered like an onion. From caterpillar and low tunnels to permanent high tunnels and row covers, the handbook explores each option, offers advice on creating and maintaining the perfect environment, and provides results on how each performs compared to a heated greenhouse.

Using the right structures makes winter growing possible and affordable, and Sylvestre adds that crop selection is also critical to success. Did you know you can increase a plant’s cold hardiness? That’s another riveting topic Fortin and Sylvestre explore in their book.

“We always want to grow food that is in season,” she says. “So what we grow in the winter are vegetables that like the cold. We won’t be heating greenhouses at 20-25°C to grow tomatoes; it doesn’t make sense, is expensive, and takes a lot of energy.”

Winter Crop Selection: Vegetables That Grow During Winter

The winter garden should include two crop categories. Carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and rutabagas are root vegetables; planting them in August is optimal for harvest in the fall. When everything is covered with white in the winter, Sylvestre suggests going green. Swiss chard, kale, arugula, mesclun, and Asian greens are well-suited to colder temperatures and produce yields with a low energy supply, busting the myth that heat is the deciding factor in winter growing.

“I’m focusing on Asian vegetables because they will grow even when there isn’t a lot of light,” she says. “This makes all the difference because our biggest limiting factor in the winter is not having a lot of light.”

A greenhouse is necessary to grow and harvest throughout the winter. A tempo or car shelter will also do the trick. They don’t have to be heated; Sylvestre recommends planting your greens in September and adding row covers inside the structure of your choice for added heat. What’s paramount is that the covers be transparent so that as much light as possible gets through, ensuring that the crops can survive when temperatures dip to the minus 20s.

“People need to see with their own eyes that it’s possible,” she says. “When you [enter] the unheated greenhouse in the morning, it’s crazy; all vegetables are frozen. But when the sunlight [returns], everything thaws, and the vegetables look luxurious again. It’s like magic.”

Changing Tides

Sylvestre recommends growing spinach if you’ve never tried gardening in the winter. It’s exceptionally cold-hardy and easy to grow. But be warned that growing a successful crop in the cold is addictive. Sylvestre says she’s met many small-scale farmers who have read her book and started experimenting with cold-season crops. They’re waking from their winter slumber, and some are flipping the script and slowing down in the summer to focus more on growing in the cold.

“In the summer, they’ll grow all their storage crops, and in the winter, they will grow their leafy greens,” she explains. “They don’t have to compete with all of the other farmers in the summer, and they can focus on the winter season where there is almost no competition.”

The Winter Market Gardener says farmers can be profitable by following the models at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps. They will succeed with the right timing, spacing, crops, and covers. Sylvestre encourages them to consider packing their fresh greens into weekly CSA boxes or selling their harvests to restaurants striving to make their menus more appealing with local food. A word of advice? Allow yourself to move slowly in the winter; don’t try to keep up with the summertime rush because it’s impossible.

“Everything in the winter is so slow,” explains Sylvestre. “The plant growth is super slow. You can take your time [and] don’t have to rush anything (…) It’s nice to have two different paces. [In the winter] when there’s no sun, we go home. It’s different from the summer, which is always go, go, go.”

Making it Simple

Growing food throughout the winter can seem overwhelming, but The Winter Market Gardener is excellent for anyone interested in boosting local food security. Fortin and Sylvestre have been careful not to be overly scientific or complicated, breaking years of research, successes, and failures into an easy-to-follow and enjoyable read. It wasn’t easy, but Sylvestre knows it was worth it.

“We like difficult things,” she laughs. “We were motivated by that.”

She’s witnessing a revolution in cold-climate vegetable production and says the future is bright for Quebec farming. She’s noticing more small market gardens run by young people popping up throughout the province and believes that farms have the potential to become community hubs once again. So, give it a try; read The Winter Market Gardener and marvel at the magic of growing greens in the cold. And if you find local farmers near you that grow throughout the winter, please support them. They’re the future of agriculture.

For more information on the incredible work at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps, check out fermequatretemps.com. Order a copy of The Winter Market Gardener: A Successful Grower’s Handbook for Year-Round Harvests here.