7 Must Grow Winter Vegetables for a Self-Sufficient Garden

Want fresh, homegrown vegetables all winter long?
In this video, I’m sharing the 7 Winter vegetables we harvest right through the colder months – reliable crops that stay in the ground, survive frosts, and keep us fed in our self-sufficiency garden.

These 7 crops are cold-hardy, low maintenance, and perfect for temperate climates like the UK, or parts of Europe, Canada, and much of the US. From perennial staples and underrated root crops, these vegetables will give you fresh nourishment when most gardens have been ‘put to bed’ for the winter!

Whether you’re building a self-sufficient homestead, looking to reduce your reliance on supermarkets and imported food, or simply want a garden that produces healthy food year-round, these crops are absolute must-grows in my opinion 💚

✔ Survive frost & freezing temperatures
✔ Store naturally in the ground for months
✔ Provide fresh nutrients through winter
✔ Require minimal energy, storage, or processing
✔ Essential for anyone wanting more food security & resilience

Growing winter vegetables is one of the simplest ways to increase your food independence, boost your harvests, and grow a garden that supports you all year, even when everything else stops growing!

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Other Videos mentioned:
Food Store Tour 👉 https://youtu.be/GrJ-jdXlqIM
Yacon Playlist 👉 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOidPRQofoMO7DbnFE7dT9EQBNsKncF72

We are Dan & Laurie and our land is called Freedom Forest – Its 3 acres in the South of England where we are creating an edible oasis and trying to provide as much for ourselves, from our land as possible, where we are completely off grid.
Our food growing journey began together in 2017 when we created our first No dig lasagne bed. Every year we grow more and more and now we are currently around 60-80% self sufficient in ALL of our food needs.
Our style and methods are inspired by permaculture and we try to be thoughtful about how and what we do, to be as gentle on the planet as possible.

We are MASSIVELY grateful that you choose to watch our Videos and support us in this way, however, If you appreciate and get value from what we share and would like to help us a little more, you can become a Freedom Forest Patreon (link below). In return your name will appear in the end credits of our videos and we’ll message you a password for the ‘members area’ of our website where we share a few more of our favourite recipes exclusively for our Patreon’s 💚

https://www.patreon.com/freedomforestlife

Enjoy & Thanks for Watching

✌️🌿 Peace and Plants

#wintervegetables #selfsufficientliving #growyourownfood #homesteading #sustainablelivingtips #FoodIndependence #ukgardening

Welcome to our 3 acre self-sufficiency farm in the south of England. Today I’m going to share seven vegetables that we harvest right through the winter. And because of vegetables like these and because of the food that we’re able to store, we manage to be up to 80% self-sufficient all year round. And if you’d like to see more about the vegetables that we store right through winter, then make sure you check out the recent video we made about our food store. I’ll drop the link for that one in the comments and also in the video description. I feel it’s even more important in the colder winter months to have fresh, nutritious food to nourish our bodies with and to help keep us healthy. And we are blessed in this climate that we are able to still grow certain crops all through the winter. The lowest temperatures we get here are about minus5. We’re in growing zone 9A. And so with a little bit of TLC, all of the crops I’m going to share today will grow happily and stay in the ground all through winter. Crop number one is leaks. And leaks are one of my favorite winter vegetables. We sewed these leaks in April and then they stay in the ground and grow steadily all through the summer. And it seems that all of a sudden as it cools off, they fatten up and become ready to harvest. Now, one of the great things about leaks is if you choose the right varieties, they will stand really well all through the winter months. You can begin harvesting leaks just as soon as they’re big enough, which will likely be around November time, but personally, I like to let mine stand for a bit longer than that. And I’ll do my first big harvest around u and then I’ll be harvesting them right into the new year and sometimes into early spring next year. And I do it this way because in the first part of winter, I’m using up all of our stored onions. And like I said, these leaks will sit really happily in the ground, and so it makes sense to use the onions first and then move on to the leaks later in the winter. Parsnips are crop number two, and these delicious root vegetables actually taste better after there’s been a frost on the ground. So much like with the leaks, I actually wait best if season till I begin doing my harvesting usually and then I’ll continue to harvest throughout the rest of the winter as we need them as these root vegetables will sit quite happily in the ground right until the end of winter. And for this reason, I sew my parnips a little bit later than recommended. I sew my parnips in May because I’m just not ready to eat parnips any sooner. And one thing to note about parnips, it is best to always use fresh seed and to make sure you keep the ground really, really moist whilst they’re germinating. And after that, they’re really easy to grow. It is just the germination part which is a little bit tricky sometimes. Jerusalem artichokes are crop number three and they have got to be the easiest, most failsafe, most productive tuber that you could grow. They are bothered by very few pests and are essentially a perennial vegetable because you will never find the abundance of tubers in the ground every time you harvest. So they will always regrow. Jerusalem artichokes can be harvested from around November after the foliage is all died back. They won’t be growing anymore. And we normally just harvest as we go and just take what we need out of the ground and then leave the rest to sit all through the winter. And Jerusalem artich chokes have a really beautiful, deep, rich flavor. And I absolutely love them roasted. And they can be used pretty much anywhere that you would use potatoes normally, but Jerusalem artich chokes do have a bit of a reputation for giving some people gas. But there are things that you can do to reduce the chance of this happening. Now, personally, one of the things that we do is introduce Jerusalem artich chokes really slowly at the beginning of the season and just a little bit at a time. And I don’t know whether this actually works or not, but I also peel Jerusalem artich chokes and I feel that that’s helped us. And I don’t normally peel a lot of vegetables. And it would be great if you guys can share any of your top tips for reducing Jerusalem artichoke gas so that we all get to enjoy this delicious root vegetable more comfortably. Crop number four is a slightly more unusual tuber and this is mashua which you might also know as perennial nosters. And mashawa is a really valuable plant because as you can see it offers this beautiful trailing ground cover. And not only that, but these leaves are really delicious. They’re not quite as strong as normal nostium leaves and so they make a beautiful addition to salads. Now, all of this foliage will die back after we’ve had our first couple of frosts and then we begin harvesting the beautiful big white tubers from under the ground. And these tubers can be eaten either raw, grated into salads or in coleslaws. And they have a slight wasabi type flavor, really spicy raw. But if you cook them, the flavor changes completely and they take on a really creamy, delicate ana seed flavor. So mostly we do roast this tuber in just a little bit of oil in with our potatoes and it is a really nice addition to our winter meals. Yakon is another slightly lesser known but very welld deserving winter vegetable. It’s actually in the same family as Jerusalem artichoke. though we do introduce it gradually in the same way. But where yakon really becomes the star of the show in winter is because I think that it is best eaten raw and at a time when there isn’t a lot of fresh crispy food available. Yakon is an amazing crop to have straight from the ground. These tubers have quite a plain but crispy watery taste. But if you leave your harvested tubers in the light for a few days, the sugars come out in them and the flavor changes completely. Dan always says he thinks eating sweetened yakon is just like sugar cane. And as you can see right now, these plants are still beautiful and lush and the foliage is just gorgeous. Really, really soft. And so right now, these tubers will still be growing and energy will be going from these leaves into the ground. So we begin harvesting our yakon after we’ve had a couple of frosts and the foliage is completely died back. And from there on, we’ll harvest it just a plant at a time as needed throughout the whole of the winter, usually right up until March or even April when the plants start respouting. And if you would like to find out more about this amazing tuber crop, we have made heaps of videos over the years specifically about yakon. So go and check out the playlist on our channel and I’ll also drop the link for that in the comments and in the video description. Kale is crop number six and it is another winter trooper that actually gets sweeter after it’s had a frost on it again. And for harvesting all through the winter, we find varieties like this Taton Dean perennial kale to be the best and the strongest growers still. As you can see, the plants grow quite big during the growing season, and so it gives you more to harvest from when the growth is slower during the winter. Now, we do grow other varieties of kale as well, like this beautiful purple Tuscan kale here. And how I harvest through winter is just by picking a few leaves off of each plant and sort of rotating which plants we harvest from. And that ensures that we get a good harvest all through the winter. Kale is also the green which is favored by our chickens as well. So I tend to just go around and pick off the slightly older leaves and then give them a nice little treat, too. And crop number seven is winter salads. And if you have any available undercover growing space, I highly recommend growing salads for the winter. They will grow steadily all through the colder months. And if you grow cut and come again varieties and harvest them lightly, they will give you salad all winter long and right into spring next year. We have more salad than we can keep up with in the winter. And funnily enough, we actually only grow and eat salad in the winter months as well. And that’s because I find salad bolts too easily and tastes bitter too quickly without high volumes of watering in the summer. But in winter, it is completely different. It is so crisp and sweet. It is my absolute favorite time to enjoy massive bowls full of salad. And we sew the seed for these salad plants in midepptember. And then we plant them out into the poly tunnel about a month later in October. And then normally harvests begin about 3 or 4 weeks after that. And I would say looking at these plants, we’re probably only about a week off taking our first harvest from in here. There are a few other vegetables that we still have in the ground that we’re harvesting at this time of year like beetroots and turnips and fennel as well. But these will probably only last for the earlier part of the winter and they might not stay in the ground so well if we do get a colder winter. I really hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about our top seven crops that we harvest right through the winter today. And we would love to hear what your favorite winter crops are in the comments down below as well. So be sure to let us know. If you’ve enjoyed this video, we would massively appreciate if you could click the thumbs up button and share the video anywhere you think it will be enjoyed by anybody else. This really helps our channel to grow and we massively appreciate your support. We look forward to seeing you here again soon and hope you too get to enjoy some good winter harvests. Peace and plants. [Music] Hello. Hello.