Growing Lettuce, Spinach and Cabbage in Winter

Growing Lettuce Spinach and Cabbage in Winter

The Frugal Gardener's Endless Summer Series

I live in zone 6A in the United States. The average temperatures in my area during December are 48 degrees for the high and 30 for the low. Most gardening sites, blogs, and videos will tell you that you cannot grow spinach and lettuce in December. Technically they are correct but there are ways. Seeds will not germinate if the weather is too cold so you would be basically wasting your time and money. The same goes for seedlings. If you do manage to have enough warm days for your seeds to germinate the seedlings will most likely die during cold nights. Now here's the good news.

Use starter pots or cups to get things going. For the purpose of this post, I am using a photo of a cucumber starter I grew a few years ago. Once the seeds have germinated you still cannot move them outside if you live in a cold climate. If you are growing lettuce and or spinach use a window box. This will be the permanent home for your spinach and or lettuce until harvest time. Once your leaves are about four to six inches tall you can move your plants outside during the day. This will acclimate them to the change from indoor to outdoor temps. After a few days of you should be able to leave them outside perinatally.

There is one exception if temperatures are expected to drop below 25 degrees you will need to cover or bring your window boxes indoors. The photo above was taken when the temperature was 19 degrees. The photo at the top of the page was taken when the temperatures rose to 42 degrees. The plants survived because the window boxes were on a carpet near the wall under the porch. All of these factors added a few degrees of warmth which helped the plants to survive.

Here is an example of how you can add protection to your leafy greens when the temperature drops.

If you look closely at the small plants behind the red pot you will see lettuce starting to sprout. I was able to sow the seeds directly in the soil last month because they are growing inside a greenhouse where the average temperature is in the mid-seventies.

                                       












Here is a shot of lettuce from last winters greenhouse.

Here is a bowl of lettuce harvested from the photo at the top of the page.

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