Cold Tolerant Vegetables

How to Chill Out with Cold-Crop Veggies

Your trowel is shiny-clean, your shovel and rake stand like sentries next to that patch of rich, beautiful topsoil. As those seed packets call your name, you ask yourself how warm is warm enough to be able to pop some of those beauties into the ground and watch them grow.

With some strategic cold-crop vegetable planting, maybe “early” isn’t too early to scratch that gardening itch after all. Despite the unpredictable frosts of Southwestern Ontario, some vegetables and herbs survive and even thrive in cooler weather.

Many garden crops – peas and lettuce are just two examples – actually produce better if planted while the air is still a bit nippy, in late April or early May.

Below, you’ll find a sampling of some cool-weather crops you may want to try. You’ll see that some can be planted as soon as the soil is workable, while others need a bit more patience to wait until the risk of frost has passed.

Some will even mature early enough that you’ll be able to double-crop them with a warmth-loving plant later in the season. The trick? Learn which herbs and vegetables love summer’s heat and which like it chill.

Cold-lovers include lettuce, onion (bulbs and bunches), seed potatoes and spinach – all of which can germinate under conditions that would have you wearing a sweater. Watch them stretch towards the late-spring sun as they grow. Needing only slightly warmer conditions to germinate are peas, radishes, and beets. You’ll want to seed them straight into the ground rather than transplant them. Leafy vegetables – kale, Swiss chard, endive, and arugula – also tend to do just fine under early-May skies. Help them along the path to germination, if you like, by warming the soil with a black plastic cover before you plant.

A bit later in the season, but not much later, you can plant seedlings you’ve started indoors or purchased from our garden centre. Make sure you “harden” them off before you plant them – that is, prepare them for the colder soil temps by transitioning them to a garage or sheltered outdoor area for a few days.

One final tip: regardless of what vegetables you’re planting and when, it never hurts to keep a garden diary – photos help too! – that will help jog your memory of what worked and what may need tweaking next year. Be cool, and enjoy!

Veggies & Herbs That Can Withstand Hard Frost

A hard freeze is when temperatures fall below –2°C for at least four consecutive hours

Veggies & Herbs That Can Withstand Light Frost

A light frost happens when nighttime temperatures drop down to or go just below 0°C

Vegetables & Herbs Best Planted After Risk of Frost is Gone

In and around London, ON it’s usually safe to plant these items outside after May 24th