Some hot chile peppers are also a good pick for a fall harvest. See this website from the Chile Pepper Institute for tips on growing chiles in the home garden.
Rhubarb is a great plant to start growing late in the season. In some parts of the country, you can grow rhubarb as late as October and November. Rhubarb is a perennial plant that grows for many years. The University of Illinois has a good site about growing rhubarb in the home garden.
If you live in states like California or Florida, you can grow a wider variety of vegetables well into the winter. Try out greens like kale and chard, lettuce, brussel sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, beets, leeks, or carrots.
Depending on the climate of your specific region, you can plant most of these vegetables well into the fall months. However, in some cases it’s best to plant a little earlier to avoid problems with low levels of light and plant pests and diseases.
Vegetables that mature quickly like turnips are okay to plant in the fall. Arugula and spinach are also great greens to plant in cooler months for an early winter harvest. The soil still needs to be above 40 degree F for the seeds to germinate so make sure to test the soil before you plant.
Artichokes are an interesting crop to grow and you can plant them in late fall. Plant artichokes from root stock and you should be able to harvest by early spring.
Sweet peas and fava beans are good to plant in late fall, roughly before Thanksgiving, for an early spring harvest. You can also plant peas in late winter and early spring in many parts of the country.
Onions and other bulb vegetables such as garlic are a good choice for late summer and early fall planting. The size of an onion depends a lot on how much sunlight it gets. Green onions that don’t need to develop bulbs are a good pick to plant all year long as long as the temperatures don’t reach freezing.
Leeks are a great veggie to grow in cooler weather. You can plant them in the summer for a fall or winter harvest. You can also plant them in the fall or winter and harvest the tender leeks in the spring. Leeks planted in the winter will generally not get as big as leeks planted during the summer.
Garlic, onions, leeks, etc. require well draining soil with plenty of organic material mixed in, so try out making your own compost and adding it to the soil before you plant these bulb vegetables.
If you grow herbs in your garden, you can move many of them indoors and enjoy them throughout the winter. This is especially easy to do if you grow them in containers. Perennial herbs like lavender and rosemary are excellent to grow in the winter garden outdoors. They will both survive frost and rosemary is considered an evergreen shrub.
Here, we’ve summarized some basic information on vegetables that are good to grow in the fall and winter. Remember to talk to your extension agent for more information about specific vegetables to grow in your area. Some of these vegetables are great choices for Italian cooking.
| Recommended Fall and Winter Vegetables | *When to Plant (Ask Your Extension Agent for Specific Dates) | Frost Hardy? | |
Arugula | Late Summer | Yes, light frost | |
Beets | Mid Summer | Yes, light frost | |
Broccoli | Mid Summer | Yes, very light frost | |
Brussels Sprouts | Mid Summer | Yes, heavy frost | |
Carrots | Mid to late summer, early fall | Yes, light frost | |
Corn | Late summer, early fall | Yes, light frost | |
Escarole | Late summer | Yes, light frost | |
Fava Beans | Late summer, early fall | Yes, medium to heavy frost | |
Garlic | Early fall | Yes, light to medium frost | |
Kale | Mid summer | Yes, medium to heavy frost | |
Leeks | Spring, Fall | Yes, light frost | |
Lettuce | Late summer | Yes, very light frost | |
Mustard greens | Mid to late summer | Yes, light frost | |
Onions | Late summer | Yes, light to medium frost | |
Radishes | Late summer | Yes, light to medium frost | |
Spinach | Later summer | Yes, light frost | |
*Note that these planting dates are listed for a fall and winter garden. Many of these vegetables are appropriate for growing during other seasons as well.
Winter Squash varieties
Chard
Rhubarb
Note that late fall and winter is an important time for properly storing your fall vegetable harvest. Store your beans, winter squashes, root crops, etc. in a cool, dry place. If you can spread them out so they’re not touching each other, this will help prevent problems with decay. Monitor your crop to make sure they show no signs of decay or disease.
FIND YOUR GARDENING ZONE
The best way to find out what you can and can’t grow during fall and winter months (and all year long) is to determine what gardening zone you live in. Gardening zones are also known as USDA Hardiness Zones. What exactly is a gardening zone? The USDA has divided the country into numbered zones based on what plants can grow in certain regions. The zones are defined by what plants can survive the lowest average temperatures of that zone.
There are now 10 different hardiness zones listed throughout the U.S. The higher the number, the higher the average low temperature is. For example, Omaha, Nebraska is located in zone 5, whereas Los Angeles, California is located in zone 10. There is also an 11th zone being considered that would be a 100% “frost free zone.” Honolulu, Hawaii is located in this new zone.
An alternative to the USDA system of hardiness zones is Sunset Magazine’s “Sunset Climate Zones.” This system takes into account such factors as the length of the growing season, rainfall levels and times, winter low temperatures, summer high temperatures, and humidity. The Sunset system is divided into many more different regions, making it more specific than the USDA system.
You can find a clickable Sunset gardening zone map here.
When you buy a plant, you will find information on what hardiness zones it is suitable for. Most plants list a Sunset gardening zone as well. This way you will know if the plant will survive the cold temperatures of your region.
You can also use this handy guide from the Old Farmer’s Almanac to determine the approximate dates of the first fall frost and the last spring frost. They also list the length of the growing season.
This website also has lots of information on the average first and last frost dates, in addition to what kinds of plants grow best in each zone. These dates, along with information about the average length of your growing season, can help you determine when to plant.
If you have any doubts about what to grow, make sure to ask your local extension agent!
RESOURCES:
Wikipedia has an excellent website with a thorough definition of USDA plant hardiness zones.
See here for a large, clickable hardiness zone map that can help you locate your gardening zone.
See this website from the US National Arboretum for gardening zone information on specific woody perennials.
Discussing the beginnings of the walkman probably requires a brief look at the audio scene in the '70s. The audio industry was enjoying success in the growing home stereo market, and the implementation of the transistor for a portable AM band receiver created a pocket radio "boom" in the '60s which continued well into the '70s. "Boomboxes" or battery-powered one-piece stereo systems were growing in popularity near the turn of the decade, with sound eminating through two or more loudspeakers. Consumers appreciated the ability to listen to high fidelity sound without being confined to sitting near a home stereo system. Pocket-sized micro and mini-cassette players were also successfully sold by companies like Panasonic, Toshiba and Olympus.
The name needed to present the idea of portability, so they considered Stereo Walky. Unfortunately, Toshiba was already using the "Walky" name for their portable radio line. The new product was a descendant of the Pressman so Walkman was proposed next. Senior staff responded to this name with doubts, as it sounded like a Japanse phrase clumsily made English. The name would fly in Japan but the product would be marketed in the US as the Sound-About and in the UK as the Stowaway.
The next task was marketing the product. The story behind Sony's market research was legendary: they didn't do it! Said Akio Morita in a 1982 Playboy interview, "The market research is all in my head! You see, we create markets." But how does one convince the public they need a product that they've never owned or seen? The first step was to get the word out to people who had influence on the public, like celebrities and people in the music industry. Sony sent Walkmans to Japanese recording artists, tv and movie stars free of charge. They also began an innovative marketing campaign, targeting younger people and active folks. The Walkman was engineered carefully to make it affordable to this market, priced to be around 33,000 yen (Sony was 33 years old at the time. Coincidence?) The imagery Sony successfully used around their Walkman gave the feelings of fun, youth and most importantly, freedom. Their invention allowed one to bring an exceptional listening experience anywhere.
The Walkman craze began in Japan and reached the US by 1980. Other audio companies jumped on the personal stereo bandwagon, and by Spring of 1981, at least two dozen companies were selling similar devices, many of which were marketed with catchy names of their own. Toshiba had their Stereo Walky, Infinity had their Intimate, Panasonic sold their Stereo-To-Go, GE marketed their Escape, and even discount audio producer Craig followed suit with the Soundalong. Styles and colors varied from the Walkman, but several key features were found on early models: two headphone jacks (listen with a friend!) separate left and right channel volume controls, and a neat but impractical "hotline" switch, as Sony called it. Pushing this button turned on an ambient microphone so the listener could hear the noise around him instead of the music. Strangely enough, all of these features disappeared from portables a year or two later.
A marketing person described this movement accurately. "During any product development," he said, "the first few years are associated with innovative design and quality." He's absolutely right. Many personal stereo products emerged and surpassed the Walkman in terms of features and price. Sanyo's M5550 was smaller than the Walkman, more durable with its all-metal chassis and contained a variable tape speed dial. Aiwa, owned by Sony since 1969 created a product line initialized by their TPS30, a personal stereo cassette recorder. Akai's PM-01 had FM tuning capability through the aid of a cassette-shaped radio module. What an incredible concept: in an effort to confine the space of a personal stereo, how can one add features at the same time? The logical, yet nonetheless remarkable idea was to place a radio within an audio cassette chassis and engineer it to send the audio into its cassette player home. Toshiba had the same functionality and offered an AM module, also.
Many groaned after seeing the $150 price tags of Sony and Toshiba and settled for their $20 earphone-clad radios until names like Unic, Randix Audiologic, Craig and Yorx came along cheap personal stereos. Discount manufacturers seized the opportunity during the portable stereo craze. Products similar in shape and functionality (but not necessarily quality) were marketed as the Walkman, using photographs of people on the go, in sneakers, roller skates and on bicycles. Fortunately, these companies made a personal stereo available for everyone.
Overseas audio manufacturers like Grundig and ITT were selling similar portables that rivaled the quality of Japanese brands. JVC announced the "be-all" of portables in 1982: the CQ-F22K. This was the first portable stereo that included all of the features we're accustomed to having today, like Dolby noise reduction, auto-reverse and AM/FM tuning. Perhaps the most exotic feature offered on a personal stereo at the time was the wireless feature discovered on some gray market Aiwa CS-J1 units. They apparently transmitted an audio signal that would be received by special headphones. Sony offered their affordable Walkman II, or WM-2 in a small, shapely all-metal chassis. This remains the most successful model of all time, selling 2 1/2 million units. By 1983, Everyone was shopping for a personal stereo.
We also noticed the blossoming of an industry to provide aftermarket accessories for personal stereos. We've all had to buy a second set of headphones at some point, some of us purchased little desktop speakers allowing our little personal stereo to become a home one of sorts. Unitech marketed a cushioned vinyl travel bag for your walkman that contained little stereo speakers inside. Simply pop your unit into it and you've got a boombox. Signatech sold a trendy vest that sported loudspeakers on the shoulders and special walkman "pocket" for an audio source.
The public was eager to hear the "perfect" sound of the CD so they rushed out to grab a "Discman." Audio companies again followed Sony and began focusing their efforts to this new technology. Walkmans didn't wane in popularity initially, for all pre-recorded music was available in cassette form and there was no consumer CD recorder at the time. As we approached the turn of the decade, features digital tuning, clocks, alarms, rechargeable batteries, wireless headphones and logic controls. But the walkman novelty had worn off, replaced by the CD and later the mini-disc.
