What to Grow in Your Winter Garden

Even after many a freezing cold night here in Nashville, Tennessee, zone 7 (and even after I got far, far behind on my garden chores), my garden still has so many things for me to harvest.

Here are 12 cool season plants you can harvest even after there's been freezing temps in your area. If you live in a warmer climate, these plants could very well thrive and produce throughout your entire winter months. For those of you in colder climates, you can further extend your enjoyment of these plants with garden covers like frost cloth or hoop houses, or with more substantial structures like cold frames.

Kale Is a Winter-Hardy Plant to Grow in Your Kitchen Garden

The months after your first frost date are kale's time to shine because the pests that like to chew holes in your leaves have mostly been killed off. My kale plants thrive in the winter months here in Nashville. The leaves look healthy and pest-free, and the plants have new leaves coming from the center.

Toscano kale, AKA dinosaur kale, is a great kale variety to grow in winter. It has bumpy cabbage-like leaves that can handle the cold down to about 20°F without frost protection. These plants also do great in hotter weather, and they're my favorite type to grow for making kale chips.

Red Russian kale and Winterbor kale are even more winter hardy than Toscano kale. I love growing Red Russian kale. The leaves are so tender and sweet, though you will have a bit more pest issues with these plants before wintry weather strikes.

No matter which type you're growing, you'll find the leaves actually taste a bit sweeter after a freeze. Maybe that'll entice you to fill up on lots of kale leaves this winter.

Find tips to grow your own organic kale.

Celery Does Not Mind Some Frost

Young celery plants don't handle freezing temps well, but established plants are good down to about 28°F. That's when you'll start seeing some frost damage.

My celery plants that I'd planted from seed back in January were still thriving in my garden through December, and I didn't give them any kind of frost protection. Those plants were looking as delicious as ever and giving me side shoots every week for smoothies and celery juice. The plants very clearly did not mind getting some frost.

Parsley Will Survive Hard Frosts in Your Garden

For a plant with such delicate-looking leaves, parsley is surprisingly tough. You just might be amazed how many frosts parsley will make it through. I've seen ice on the leaves of my curly parsley plants, and by the time the sun comes back out, you'd never know there'd been cold weather at all.

Like kale, parsley is a biennial, which means it doesn't want to go to seed until it's been in the garden for two years. This is great news for us gardeners because it means our parsley plants want to stay in our gardens as long as possible. They will resist dying from frost, heat, thirst—you name it. It would take prolonged temps below 10°F to take out your parsley plants.

That means you can have parsley on your morning omelette and in your homemade chimichurri well into the winter months. I have parsley in almost every single one of my raised beds, and I get to enjoy it all year long.

Learn how to grow your own parsley.

Swiss Chard Can Tolerate Cold Temps Down to 20°F

Swiss chard is not as winter hardy as kale, but it can definitely take some frost. And like kale, those leaves will actually taste sweeter after being kissed by some ice.

Swiss chard is another biennial, so it wants to stay in your garden as long as it possibly can in order to create seeds in its second year. As you can imagine, that also means these gorgeous little plants will hang in there during the hotter months, as well.

Swiss chard and its cousin, spinach, are great leafy greens to grow under cold frames in cold climates. I typically don't cover my garden for winter, so once Nashville gets its first hard frost of the season, I pull my Swiss chard plants. This year, however, I had one plant with deep red stems that lingered. The hardiest chard variety is actually something like Fordhook, which has the white stems.

Swiss chard stems and leaves are full of antioxidants and nutrients. That deep red of my surviving plant is just the color you want to be consuming during the winter months to boost your immunity and help you fight off all those cold and flu germs lingering in the air. We should all be eating as many Swiss chard leaves as we can while our plants are producing.

Green Onions Can Handle Light to Moderate Freezes

I've kept green onions growing in my raised beds all year long. I can just come in and cut regularly from the greens to use in my kitchen. Some of my plants will turn into bulbing onions, but I mostly grow them for the leaves. They're good down to about 20°F, so they can definitely handle light and even moderate freezes.

Your green onions might look a little floppy after some frost, but they'll still be fragrant and add so much wonderful flavor to your winter dishes. Tossing green onions onto frittatas and soups and stews and stir fries is the perfect way to bring the garden into the kitchen, even when it's super cold outside. 

Oregano Is a Winter-Hardy Herb

Oregano is a plant that never stops giving in my garden. My plants typically die back during a hard freeze in late December or January or so, but then they start coming right back by February. That means I can cut from my oregano plants almost year round in Nashville, which is a mild climate; I harvested oregano all year long back in the warmer climate of Houston.

Oregano is a perennial, so your plants will die back during the coldest part of the year and then return from their roots once the soil warms in spring. You can typically expect to enjoy hardy perennials like oregano in your garden for years.

I can harvest enough leaves from a couple of oregano plants to have a year-round supply in my kitchen. Add some oregano to your garden, and you'll soon be enjoying heaps of oregano.

Learn more about growing oregano in your garden.

Rosemary Is Frost-Resistant Down to 10°F

Rosemary is one of my favoritest plants in the world. It smells to me like hope in the middle of a long winter. And man, can this plant hang in there through some of the coldest of temps. My plants don't even look phased after weeks of temps in the low 20s.

Just as rosemary can push through winter, its smell can help you push through hard times. I remember rubbing a huge rosemary bush between my fingers on my way to the cafeteria when I was depressed in grad school, long before I ever read studies about this herb's use to treat anxiety and depression. Smelling the herb was like a survival mechanism in my body. I just needed it.

I still have a daily practice of cutting some rosemary leaves, smelling them, and feeling better. If you're someone prone to Season Affective Disorder, make sure to add some rosemary to your garden to help you through the long winter nights. I'm confident you'll feel better, too.

Another great thing about rosemary is that even if you were to cut everything off, your herb will still come back strong in the spring.

Find more tips to keep your rosemary plants happy.

Chives Are Super Hardy Perennial Plants

Like green onions, chives can really hang in there after frost, though they do get a little droopy. After frost, you can still harvest your chives, but you might consider drying them in the oven or a dehydrator rather than using them fresh since they'll have lost some of their vibrant flavor. That way, you can still toss chives on your hearty winter soups and baked potatoes.

Chives are perennial plants in the onion family. They will die back with extreme wintry weather, but they're usually one of the first plants to pop back up in my garden every spring. Not even spring, really, more like late winter, as soon as the weather warms up slightly. If you use garden covers or have a cold frame, your chives should be able to grow through winter and beyond.

Learn more tips to grow your own organic chives.

Cabbage Is a Frost-Hardy Veggie

Cabbage has nice, thick leaves that have allowed it to be grown in colder places for centuries. It's a cousin to kale—they're both in the brassica family—and loves cooler weather. You'll find the leaves of your cabbage plant taste a little sweeter after some frost. Plus, you won't have to worry about those pesky cabbage worms for a bit.

Napa cabbage only tolerates temps down to about 26º F, but other cabbage varieties are more frost resistant. If you're growing in a colder climate, look for types with savoyed leaves. Savoy just means bumpy. The bumpier the leaves, the higher tolerance for cold.

Learn more about growing cabbage in your backyard.

Sage Can Handle Some Wintry Weather

Sage is another perennial herb alongside its cousins, rosemary and oregano. It does have savoy leaves, but sage isn't quite as frost resistant as rosemary. That being said, I've witnessed sage hold on through really wintry nights. My plants regularly have new growth on them even as late as December. If your sage plants die back, they will regrow in the spring.

If your sage is still producing, snip some sprigs for dinner and then hang some up to dry. That way, you'll have sage to last through all your hearty butternut squash soup nights this winter.

Read up on growing your own organic sage.

Thyme Is a Frost-Tolerant Herb for Your Winter Garden

I've been harvesting thyme all year long, and honestly, my plants are still green and lush well into December. Like the other perennial herbs I've mentioned—rosemary, sage, and oregano—your thyme plants will die back during the coldest months and then regrow from the roots as soon as the soil warms back up.

Read more tips to grow thyme in the garden.

Broccoli is a Winter-Hardy Cole Crop

Broccoli is an impressively tough ol' plant. I put my broccoli seedlings in the garden around late September, and they were so luscious in December when it was harvest time, even after loads of frost. I have to say, that was despite experiencing some pretty serious neglect from me.

Plant some broccoli to enjoy the most delicious stir fry right in the middle of winter. Broccoli does not mind frost. Some of the leaves of your plant might get a little frost-burnt, but the plant itself will be fine. The broccoli heads will actually be sweeter tasting after frost.

I've tried growing broccoli in the spring, and in every climate I've grown in except Chicago, the weather warmed up too fast for broccoli to do well. My plants always ended up flowering before I got nice, round heads. I'm doing late fall/early winter broccoli from now on.

Learn more about growing broccoli.

Enjoy Your Winter Harvests

Honestly, I neglected my garden for most of the fall and winter, and I still got plenty of winter harvests. My basket was full of herbs and leaves and beautiful broccoli heads. So I can assure you that gardening well past your first frost date is totally worth it. I can only imagine what my garden would have grown for me these past couple months if I'd actually given it a little bit more attention!

Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary again, frost or snow, rain or shine!