How to Grow Winter Vegetables

While I have quite a collection of books about winter vegetable gardening, I turn to this book a lot for advice on timing. This is the best organized manual I have seen on how to grow crops for eating in the winter. The author gives specific, practical advice for what to do each month for each vegetable: preparing, planting (including spacing for best results, giving you a range), care, and special concerns. He also has helpful charts for at-a-glance help. He's been a market gardener for many years and it shows. I'm surprised this book isn't more popular. My guess is that it is because the author lives in the UK and the book hasn't been promoted in the US. I've found the author's timing and culture recommendations work very well for my mid-Atlantic garden as long as I keep in mind that his winters are a bit milder than mine, and his climate is usually more rainy and cooler in the summer. If you live in the South, you will need to grow short-day onions (he grows long-day onions), and the timing will be different.

I loved all the details about each plant's requirements. I wish that the recommendations about timing were more about light and temperature and moisture, rather than say, March, or May, or whatever works for Charles Dowding in his specific region. For example, knowing when peas sprout or flower or fruit or stop doing any of those activities moisture- or temperature-wise is more helpful than knowing what month is a good month for him to do those things. I live in an area dominated by microclimates! That said, I learned a lot about many winter vegetables, and have much more courage to try growing them now.

Great reference. Mr. Dowding's market garden is in zone 8 so it is quite applicable even here in US. After reading this, you wonder why you didn't plant vegetables for winter harvest and for spring "hunger gap". We run a small farm and sell at local farmers market and it still has wealth of information even for those of us with years of experience. And if you are new or novice at gardening, Mr. Dowding really makes it easy for you to understand, when to plant and when to harvest. And I do love his writing style. Don't turn over the soil no matter how great your temptation is. And do use insect netting for brassicas.

Mr. Dowding pours knowledge of no dig gardening over every page. From soil building methods to individual vegetables growing techniques and sowing schedule. This book is not only a book for growing winter vegetables, but how to plan the garden around having a productive garden year-round.

This is a wonderful book. Very organized, easy to follow, complete guide to growing winter vegetables. Charles adds a very pleasant writing style with tips and tricks and things that he tried that did not work so well for him. I find this the first book I reach for in guidance.

Wow, an entire new window of opportunity has been opened up to me in the gardening world!!!

Love this book

Loads of great info. Have started my Fall/Winter Garden already!

I rate Charles Dowling highly, he's an experienced vegetable grower and a brilliant communicator. This is my third book of his and the one I have been waiting for. Every year my allotment skills improve and I build on past experience BUT in winter I have rarely managed more than a small crop of purple sprouting broccoli and a few leeks. Next winter will be different. The book is extremely well laid out with best sowing times very clearly explained. From this I have been able to fill my diary with reminders for sowing and planting. The fantastic photos show what to expect at all stages from seedling to plant to mid-winter. I highly recommend it.

Dieses Buch sollte man unbedingt zusammen mit Organic Gardening vom gleichen Autor kaufen, denn diese beiden Bücher ergänzen sich hervorragend! Auch hier handelt es sich um ein Buch jenseits der üblichen Plattituden, die viele Autoren gegenseitig voneinander abschreiben. Der erste Teil über die No-Dig-Methode an sich, ist erfreulich kurz gehalten, viel muss man auch nicht darüber schreiben, so einfach ist sie. Das Unglaubliche an diesem Buch ist das detaillierte Wissen über die besten Anbauzeiten für bestimmte Salat- oder Gemüsesorten. Das Wissen des Autors speist sich aus seiner Praxiserfahrung und vielen Versuchen, Irrtümern und Experimenten über Jahrzehnte hinweg. Auch seine Gedanken zu möglichen Fruchtfolgen sind sehr umfangreich. Es gibt aber keine fertigen Anbaupläne, wer danach sucht, ist hier falsch. Aber durch die Informationen über Fruchtfolgen und Anbauzeiten kann man sich leicht seine eigenen Pläne zusammenstellen, ohne an vorgefertigte Ideen gebunden zu sein. Anfangs war ich ein bisschen verwirrt, warum in einem Buch über Wintergemüse der Spargel so viel Aufmerksamkeit bekommt, bis mir im letzten Kapitel klar wurde, dass für Charles Dowding der Ernte-Winter bis in den Juni dauert. "Hungry Gap" würde ich frei als Sauregurkenzeit bezeichnen, wenn draußen zwar schon wieder viel wächst, es aber dauert bis geerntet werden kann. In diese Zeit fällt unter anderem die Ernte des Spargels, dank dessen frisches lokales Gemüse in dieser mageren Ernte-Zeit auf den Tisch kommt. Natürlich beziehen sich alle Angaben von Charles Dowding auf seine Klimazone im Südwesten Englands, aber mit etwas Geschick und Frostschutzvliesen und Winterschutz lässt sich einiges auch auf rauhere Lagen übertragen. Ich halte dieses Buch zusammen mit "Organic Gardening" vom gleichen Autor für eine wunderbare Grundlage, um einen Einstieg in die Selbstversorgung aus dem eigenen Garten zu finden.

I feel equipped to sow seeds at the right time to have a more successful crop of winter vegetables next year. Well presented information and a very practical book.

Nice little book but just not useful in colder growing zones.

Really practical with lots of great tips for times of sowings,suitable crops and growing methods to help garden over winter,but actually it's really useful for summertime too to help you plan ahead so you don't run out of plants later in the year.Wish I had got this book sooner!