It’s hard to believe that the end of the 2025 growing season is coming to a close. Countless quarts and pints of pickles, green beans, tomatoes, and more have been canned or frozen for use over the winter. Winter squash and pumpkins are coming in, and sweet potatoes are starting to be harvested (though some gardeners like to wait until just before the first hard frost). Time to clean those tools for storage and get your garden ready for winter. Or is it?

Some of my gardeners are starting a second round of gardening, planting more green beans, peas, cabbage, and more. Still others are planning on planting cold weather crops like collards and kale that are cold hardy enough to survive a West Virginia winter if properly cared for.

So, how do you continue to have fresh produce over the winter, when you’re looking at temperatures in the teens, snow, and sometimes ice? If you don’t have a greenhouse, that’s not exactly conditions that plants thrive with. The answer is creativity.

First off, if you’re rural, there are plenty of leaves on the hillsides that will provide a nice warm blanket for things like collards and kale on colder days. Just rake them down and cover your plants. If it snows, that’s just another insulating, protective layer. Just uncover on days the temperatures are above freezing.

Have a yen for fresh beans, peas, or cherry tomatoes? A 5 gallon bucket will hold one plant indoors, and a cheapie $15 workshop light will give them all the sun they need. Fresh herbs will do well started in larger canning jars. Celery used about 2/3 of the way down can sit on a canning jar ring over a jar of water, and will give you 3-4X the use of that store celery than you would have gotten. Green onions started in a long planter on a window sill will give you fresher and tastier green onions (and cheaper, too) than what you can get at the store.

So with a little bit of creativity, and some effort (ok- maybe just a tad more than some…), you can be enjoying fresh home-grown produce year-round. And for some reason, when it’s dark, and cold, and dreary outside, and you’re simmering up a pot of fresh collards or beans, etc, they taste so very good, and tend to make you feel like it’s summer again.