How to Grow Year-Round on Your Market Farm: Tips for Your First Winter Production

The key to successful winter production is getting your timing right — your crops need to reach roughly three-quarters maturity before day length drops below 10 hours, and you need to know whether "days to maturity" on the seed packet means from direct seeding or from transplanting (it varies by crop). Start with cold-hardy staples like spinach, use row covers even if you don't have tunnels, ventilate on sunny days to prevent moisture-related disease, and stick to crops that actually thrive in cold weather rather than trying to force warm-season crops through winter.

If you've never grown through winter before, the idea can feel overwhelming. Heated tunnels, complicated planting schedules, unfamiliar crops — it's easy to talk yourself out of it before you even start.

But winter production doesn't have to be complicated. Some of the most profitable and satisfying growing you'll do on your market farm happens in the cold months, and you don't need a perfect setup to get started.

My dad, John Dysinger, has been growing year-round at Bountiful Blessings Farm for over two decades — he started winter production in 2003. In a recent video, we talked through the biggest tips and mistakes for first-time winter growers. Here's what you need to know to get started without repeating the lessons he learned the hard way.

What Does Year-Round Growing Actually Mean?

Year-round growing means producing and harvesting crops through all four seasons, including the coldest months of winter. It doesn't mean turning your tunnel into a tropical greenhouse. It means selecting crops that naturally thrive in cold weather, timing your plantings so they mature before growth slows, and using simple, affordable protection like row covers and tunnels to keep those crops alive and harvestable.

People are always surprised when my dad tells them he farms through the winter. They assume he must be heating tunnels constantly, or that there's nothing worth growing. The truth is that there are many crops that can freeze solid, thaw when the sun comes out, and bounce right back — and those crops taste incredible after exposure to cold. It continues to boggle the minds of people in our area that this is even possible, but after 22 years of doing it, I can tell you it absolutely works.

What Is the Biggest Mistake First-Time Winter Growers Make?

Timing. Specifically, misunderstanding days to maturity on seed packets.

This was one of my dad's very first mistakes when he started winter growing, and looking back he says it seems so basic — but it cost him an entire season's worth of heading crops.

Here's the issue: some crops list days to maturity from direct seeding, and some list it from transplanting. If a cabbage or broccoli variety says "65 days to maturity" and that number is from transplanting — not from when you dropped the seed — you need to add several weeks of nursery time on top of that before you even get to 65 days.

My dad was counting back from his target harvest date using the days-to-maturity number, seeding at that calculated date, and then watching his crops fail to size up before cold weather set in. The plants simply weren't mature enough when growth slowed.

The fix is simple but critical: check whether days to maturity is from seeding or transplanting. Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog is especially helpful here — for crops like broccoli, it explicitly states "days to maturity from date of transplanting" in the cultural tips. Once you understand which number you're working with, your planting schedule will make sense.

How Do You Calculate Winter Planting Dates?

The core principle is that your crops need to reach approximately three-quarters (75%) maturity before your day length drops below 10 hours of sunlight.

Below 10 hours of daylight, plant growth slows dramatically. Your cold-hardy crops won't die — they handle the cold just fine — but they essentially stop sizing up. Whatever you've got in the ground at that point is what you'll be harvesting from for the rest of winter.

For us in zone 7 (middle Tennessee), the last 10-hour day falls at the end of November. You work backwards from that date to figure out when each crop needs to go in the ground.

Johnny's Selected Seeds has an excellent free resource for this — their Winter Growing Guide, available as a printable PDF on their website. It's about 10 pages long and includes a chart that lets you look up your last 10-hour day length and count back weeks to determine seeding dates for different crops. My dad finds it very helpful and it's a great starting point.

One important caveat: my dad notes that the 10-hour rule is more rigid in far northern climates than it is here in Tennessee. In our zone, we still get some growth through winter, and every winter is different — a mild winter with warm stretches will keep crops growing more than a harsh one. So treat it as a starting point, not an absolute. You'll need what my dad calls a "shotgun approach" — plant at several intervals because you don't know what the winter will throw at you.

What Crops Should You Grow in Winter?

Stick to cold-hardy crops — the "roots and shoots" category. Spinach, lettuce, kale, carrots, Asian greens, and brassicas are all excellent winter performers. Spinach in particular can handle incredible amounts of cold weather and is a great confidence-builder for a first-time winter grower.

Do not try to grow warm-season crops in winter. My dad has a cautionary tale here. Bountiful Blessings Farm once tried growing tomatoes through the winter in a heated double-plastic tunnel with propane heaters running non-stop. The result? They didn't harvest enough tomatoes to cover the propane bill, and the tomatoes didn't even taste good.

The lesson: grow in season, or extend the season with cold-hardy crops. But don't try to turn the seasons on their head. If you make customers wait all winter for tomatoes, they'll be ready to pay $5 a pound come spring. That's a much better business strategy than burning propane all winter for mediocre fruit.

How Important Are Row Covers for Winter Growing?

Extremely important — and you don't need high tunnels to use them.

Row covers draped over wire hoops can provide remarkable cold protection even without any larger tunnel structure. You can double or triple the layers if temperatures drop severely. It's amazing what row covers alone can do for extending your harvest window.

If you do have tunnels, row covers inside the tunnel create a critical second layer of protection — what we call the "two-layer system" — that can keep crops alive and marketable through the coldest nights of the year.

Why Is Ventilation Critical in Winter?

This is one that catches a lot of new winter growers off guard. You'd think that keeping everything sealed up tight in cold weather would be the goal, but too much trapped moisture is actually one of the biggest winter growing problems.

On sunny winter days, temperatures inside tunnels can spike and humidity builds rapidly. If you don't ventilate — open the tunnel, pull back the row covers — that high-moisture air sits on your plants and creates disease pressure. Fungal issues in winter are almost always a ventilation problem.

Even with just row covers over outdoor beds, pulling them back on sunny days to let air circulate makes a real difference in keeping your crops healthy through the season.

What Books Should I Read Before Starting Winter Production?

Two essential resources:

Eliot Coleman's The Winter Harvest Handbook — This is the original book on winter growing and still the definitive reference. Coleman pioneered the concept of unheated winter production and laid out the planting schedules, crop selection, and tunnel management techniques that most winter growers use today. My dad has referenced this book for decades.

Jean-Martin Fortier's The Winter Market Gardener — An excellent companion book with detailed information on winter vegetable production for small farms, including crop profiles and cold-season planning tools.

Both are worth having on your shelf. But don't let the depth of information in these books overwhelm you. Start simple — a few crops, some row covers, and good timing — and build from there.

The Takeaway

Winter growing is more accessible than most people think. The keys are timing (get your crops to three-quarter size before day length drops below 10 hours), crop selection (cold-hardy roots and shoots, not warm-season fruiting crops), protection (row covers at minimum, tunnels if you can), and ventilation (open up on sunny days to prevent moisture problems).

Don't be intimidated. Start with spinach. Put up some row covers. Pay attention to whether your seed catalog is counting days to maturity from seeding or transplanting. And trust that crops can handle far more cold than you'd expect.

Your customers — and your winter revenue — will thank you.

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