Greenhouse Planting Schedule

I feel blessed to have a greenhouse on this new acreage which opens up more opportunities for year-round gardening. Having a greenhouse year-round means some careful garden planning, crop rotation, and good soil restoration.

Previously on my old blog Little Mountain Haven, I shared with you our greenhouse planting schedule for our old polytunnel greenhouse (the plastic and pipes we’ve kept to build low tunnels with in our new garden). It looked something like this:

Growing Food Year-Round in a Greenhouse

Complete Greenhouse Growing Schedule

This is our greenhouse planting schedule for year round food production.

Winter: Sow at the end of August or early September. Our greenhouse schedule for winter consists of growing beets, carrots, winter lettuce, mache, green onions, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, mustards, arugula, kohl rabi, turnips, and kale.

Spring: Sow at the end of winter around March and April. Our greenhouse planting schedule for spring includes planting overwintered greens, early planting of new potatoes, beets, turnips, lettuce, spinach, and carrots.

Summer: We prep for the summer by transplanting the crops into the ground in the middle of May. Our greenhouse planting schedule for summer includes tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil.

Fall: Sow at the end of August or early September. Our greenhouse planting schedule for fall has us growing beets, carrots, winter lettuce, mache, green onions, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, mustards, arugula, kohl rabi, turnips, and kale.

Growing Food Year-Round in a Greenhouse

I sowed all of our fall and winter crops Sept 4th & 8. Next year I’d like to reserve a corner for some earlier sowing, maybe mid-August. You don’t want to sow too early because it’s hot and can make the plants bolt and go to seed.

Our first frost this year was Sept 13th, but the greenhouse stayed frost-free and likely will until it dips well below zero. Our turnips were the first to sprout after just 2 days, the rest of the seeds have been coming up consistently since. Some crops are experimental: broccoli, cold hardy cauliflower (purple cape is supposed to be able to handle -10C/14F) and overwintering Galleon cauliflower down to -18C/0.4F) and I had some old parsnip seeds that I threw in there, they take 100 days so they might not get large enough.

I’m looking forward to all the crops filling in & will keep updating this article with photos with the progression!

Growing Food Year-Round in a Greenhouse

7 thoughts on “Greenhouse Planting Schedule”

  1. How do you prep the ground soil. We are getting a high tunnel and are planning to put it up over a spot we tried back to eden gardening.

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  2. I don’t have a green house yet, I am in NE TN, and the temps have gone cold at night, usually around 2or 3 AM, but I planted lettuce and I go out and clip those little leaves every other day and have them with the peppers and make a salad or sandwich, it is great. started spinach, and as I was bringing the plantings to the front of the house to bring into my basement, I just plucked the tiny second leaves and they are so delicious!!!

    I cover my lettuce out side with a sheet, I plan on either using a lamp or bringing those plantings into the dining room to the window where it is cool, have wood heat in basement. That way can water and eat till at least FEB. In Jan will start the new crops and have them out in March. Ground does not freeze here, but we have a drought now and the fires in NC are so close and some have come into the area about 20 miles east of me, smoke and all bothered me this morning in town. cold and snow predicted this weekend, I would love it to rain, I use the water from the ‘spring’ that is pumped up from under my house by a sump pump when it gets full, I collect it.

    One day, I will have a green house outside the back of the house and will walk in an glean my food from there and not have to rely on others. I am 80 and this is exciting to me, after being almost crippled by spinal problems, ALL plantings will have to be waite high for me cause I cannot get down, but pallets work great for me and those barrels from town for 12 bucks each, cut in half, put on some concrete blocks or stacked pallets and there I have a huge place to grow.

    Thank you for showing you have problems like I do, but we get through them and gain from it all. Love, Nancy:-)

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  3. Hi. Just stumbled on your website. I have grown large gardens for years. But have never done any fall/winter gardening. We live in Alberta. Are you just extending your fall season? Or are you just keeping things from freezing to harvest established root crops all winter?

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    • Hi Heidi! I believe you’re in a zone 2 or 3 in Alberta. I have a winter garden in 3 ways: to harvest greens and root crops until the deep freeze sets in (about mid to late Dec, these crops are sown early to mid-summer), to harvest during mid-winter thaws when the temps go up enough that the greens like kale or spinach thaw out to harvest, and the 3rd is overwintering for early spring harvests (I sow these crops in September so they’re close to the ground, protected by snow or in the unheated greenhouse, then they grow like crazy in April to provide us with early harvests).

      I do know in your growing zone you’ll need a double tunnel effect because of the cold. Every winter is different, some winters are super cold, others aren’t. In general our temps go down to -20c, yours tend to be -30 or even -40 ( I lived in Calgary & Edmonton for many years!)

      If you search ‘winter gardening’ or ‘fall gardening’ on my blog I’ve written MANY posts on it. This will be my 3rd year with the unheated greenhouse (our cover is more of a canvas and doesn’t absorb as much sunlight as a plastic cover would do to increase the temp)

      Hope some of this helps!

      Isis

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  4. We have a 8×8 greenhouse and would like to try winter gardening in it. We are in zone 7a in North Carolina. it has a concrete block floor so will need to do containers. What do you suggest as the best vegetables to grow. I had herbs all last winter but would like to do some veggies. Also where do I get the right seeds for this. Thanks in advance.

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  5. I decided to start keeping some citrus a few years ago. They started out small, but this year were large enough that I got lemons (just 3, but it’s blooming again already), limes (over 30), and kumquats (a bajillion!). My grapefruit hasn’t started yet. Now, this has been very gratifying, but since the bushes/trees have gotten big(ish), bringing them inside in the winter has made my little home even smaller. I’m right on the edge between zone 7b and 8a (I can overwinter cabbage and broccoli just by covering with a bit of hard plastic but the arugula doesn’t need to be covered). I want to build a cold frame green house for next winter—needs to stay above 40F to keep the citrus going, but there won’t be any electricity out there. Does this sound feasible? Can you make any suggestions regarding what I should look at?

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