It's the middle of winter, but I still do gardening in the snow. A simple growing box can provide my family with all the sandwich vegetables we need in early spring. That's why I sow in winter!

There's no rush to get the seeds into the soil outside. It's going to happen sooner or later. But I just love having a head start in spring, and the early sowings make a huge difference in my garden. So, why wait? Why not try to do gardening in the snow this year, by sowing new seeds in winter!

The seeds I sow in winter (outside in January/February) start to germinate already in March. And I can start harvesting some of these plants as early as April here in zone 3. This inspires me to keep going through the winter too.

But can you really do gardening in the snow? How does that work? Check out this video from February 2018 when I sowed a mix of leafy greens that I wanted to harvest extra early and put on my breakfast sandwiches.

Here we have the results! The video was recorded in May and I was able to start harvesting in April:

Read more: Winter Sowing for Beginners

Gardening in the Snow - Vegetables

There are plenty of vegetables you can grow in snow. Try to find options that take around the same time to develop. Here are a few examples:

Fast-growing vegetables:

• lettuce
• arugula
• spinach
• kale
• orache
• dill
• turnip

Vegetables that take a little longer:

• parsnip
• summer carrot
• black salsify
• common salsify
• cabbage
• parsley
• scallion

There are other ways to do gardening in the snow though. You can for example just go for one single crop and simply scatter the seeds on top of the area, instead of sowing the seeds in rows. This is a great choice for a smaller space that doesn't need to be covered with that much soil later.

Another option is to split a larger bed into smaller sections, for example by using twigs to mark the area. This makes it easy to do several different broadcast sowings in the same spot.

More about winter gardening: Winter sowing vlog

Snow on Top?

Some of my followers asked me why I don't put snow on top of my sowings. Well, the simple answer is convenience. I'm just a bit too lazy to do it every time. I can wait for nature to take care of it. This sowing was actually covered by new snow after just a few days. It melted nicely in the milder temperature outside. After a week or so, it was time to put plastic on top of the area to make it even warmer later. If you do these winter sowings in a grow box, you can perhaps add a lid to improve the environment even more. This is just one example of how you can keep gardening in the snow.

The soil I used for this sowing is regular store-bought soil from a bag, the only thawed soil I had at the time. In other cases, I use lots of soil from my own garden for these types of projects. Learn more about how you can create your own soil here:

I hope that this talk about gardening in the snow doesn't stress you out too much. It's optional of course. And fun if you ask me!
/Sara Bäckmo