Garland speaks with BDN about growing vegetables during the winter

Kate Garland, a horticultural professional with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, spoke with the Bangor Daily News about growing vegetables during the winter. Overwintering vegetables is the practice of leaving vegetables in the ground during the winter to harvest in the spring, according to the article. Certain crops are able to withstand the cold, and timing your planting accordingly can yield a more diverse harvest, the article states. Successful overwintering depends on soil, according to Garland. “With wet, heavy soil, the storage capacity is not as great as well-drained sandy soil,” she said. If the conditions are too moist, you will be pulling shriveled or rotted vegetables from the ground come spring, the BDN reported. Garland also was quoted in a related BDN article about cold frames, an easily assembled windowed box that will shelter plants all winter. It is important to properly ventilate cold frames to keep vegetables from frying in the sunlight, the article states. “If you think about how high the temperature can get during the day and how quickly it can drop at night, it’s a pretty big difference,” said Garland, who recommends checking the temperature in the cold frame daily.