Winter Garden Varieties

Varieties bearing the Winter Garden tag have successfully overwintered in at our location near Sweet Home, Oregon – USDA Zone 8b, with average winter lows between 15-20˚F. We often use row cover for protection when temperatures are forecast to be below 25˚F, but have found many varieties are hardy down to at least 20˚F with no protection.

Please note that inclusion here is not a guarantee of success with overwintering! Many factors, including plant size, the presence of snow or other insulation, and gradually decreasing temps vs. an abrupt cold snap, to name a few, contribute to a plant’s winter hardiness. Varieties that do well some years may not survive others.

Most varieties listed here are planted and grown to maturity (or near maturity) during the main garden season and harvested during the winter months.

For more information about winter gardening, check out The Big Willamette Winter Gardening Chart. This is a compilation of notes on fall, mid-winter and overwintering crops made in collaboration with our good friend Nick Routledge. It includes lists of crop types, sow dates, hardiness, approximate harvest times, and notes on varieties gathered through years of experience. Even if you don’t live in the Willamette Valley, this info is sure to help any winter gardener where lows are above 10-15˚F.

Showing 33–64 of 135 results

Chicory, Sugarloaf Borca (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $48.00
Cichorium intybus. Sugarloaf type. 80 days. Tall, green romaine-like “loafs” are sweet and crunchy. Usually hardy here in the Pacific Northwest all winter long, although temperatures below 20°F may damage heads. The Borca selection has had much better consistency and hardiness for us in our trials than other strains of sugarloaf. It became a staple…

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Chicory, Trieste Sweet (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $48.00
Cichorium intybus. Rosette type. 35 days leaf; 60 head. Trieste Sweet is a cut-and-come-again chicory that is usually broadcast sown, and harvested at baby leaf stage for use in salad mixes. Known for regrowth after harvest. Young leaves are smooth with round tips, thin stems that have almost no ribbing, and a mild sweet flavor…

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Chicory, Variegata di Castelfranco (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $48.00
Cichorium intybus. Loose heading type. 70 days. Chicories are becoming more popular in the Pacific Northwest with castelfranco and sugarloaf leading the charge. Why? Because they’re delicious! Variegata di Castelfranco is a big heading chicory with lots of bright colors, mostly green with red speckles. If planted in July or early August, it will head…

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Cilantro, Standby (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $48.00
Coriandrum sativum. A must-have in the herb garden! Standby cilantro’s bright flavor freshens up any meal and is essential in so many cuisines worldwide – especially Latin American, Middle Eastern, Southeast and South Asian. Very hardy and slow bolting, it is excellent sown year-round, and especially in the late fall for winter harvest or an…

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Clover, Crimson (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $18.00
Trifolium incarnatum. An excellent winter or spring cover crop known primarily for its nitrogen fixing properties and high biomass production. Large, strikingly beautiful crimson flowers appear in the late spring and are great food for bees and other pollinators. In regions where the winter stays above 0°F, Crimson Clover is sown in the late summer…

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Corn Salad, Gelber Nüssler (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $38.00
Valerianella sp. 55 days. Nüssler is the common name for corn salad in German-speaking Switzerland, where we picked up this tasty and nutritious gem on our Seed Ambassadors travels many years ago. Light-green (almost golden) leaves have very mild flavor and form a small rosette which is harvested whole or occasionally as cut-and-come-again salad greens…

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Corn Salad, Granon (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $54.00
Valerianella locusta. 35 days. Granon is a standby variety of corn salad that grows well year-round in cool climates, but is best known as a winter salad green for both outdoor and indoor production. Plants produce a small rosette (think baby greens size) that may be harvested whole or by cutting individual leaves for cut-and-come-again…

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Corn Salad, Piedmont (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $54.00
Valerianella locusta. 45 days. Winter hardy, yet tender and mild flavored salad green that has a nice subtle hint of nuttiness with a floral perfume. Plants form a small rosette of strap-shaped, light-green, 4″ leaves. Usually grown autumn through spring, the very hardy plants easily overwinter in our field. Piedmont is a large seeded, larger…

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Cress, Dutch Broadleaf (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $42.00
Lepidium sativum. 30 days. Very large, broad leaves for a garden cress, with nice wavy edges. Fairly slow to bolt. Good hot mustard flavor reminiscent of wasabi without too much spice. Makes a substantial addition to salad mix. Dutch Broadleaf cress is great on sandwiches, and we especially enjoy its peppery addition to BLTs. An…

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Delicious Diversity Mesclun Mix (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $22.00
30-60 days. One of the easiest ways to celebrate edible plant diversity is to put it in your salad mix. This is our chosen salad mix for most of the year – except the hottest months. Mixed for deliciousness and beauty, with colors ranging from dark red to vivid green. Also very hardy for winter…

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Endive, Capellina (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 55-65 days. The unique, fine, pointy leaves of Capellina set it apart from other frisée endives. Large mounds of frilly pointy craziness. Much hardier than other frisée types. Good flavor raw for salad mixes. Best as a spring, fall or winter harvest as it may get tip burn in the summer heat. All…

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Endive, Frisée de Meaux (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 60-70 days. Large-headed, triple cut frisée. While endive is sweetest in winter, this is the best frisée we offer for summer production making Frisée de Meaux good for harvest summer through winter. Big, self-blanching hearts are delicious in salad and much more frost tolerant than lettuce. It is always nice to add a…

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Endive, Pancalieri a Costa Bianca (Organic)
Rated 3.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 60-70 days. A vigorous Italian endive with large heads. The leaves are long with frilly edges and great flavor. Thick, crunchy, and juicy leaf stem and midribs is what Pancalieri a Costa Bianca is about. We find it performs great in the summer heat but it’s not nearly as sweet. Cold hardy heads…

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Escarole, Ascolana (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 60-70 days. Super hardy Italian escarole for winter and spring production. Ascolana produces beautiful dark-green heads with curly edged leaves that are perfect for salad mix. Similar leaf shape to Schiana but not as wide and wavy as Diva escarole. Ascolana has the ability to obtain a very large size and keeps very…

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Escarole, Cardoncella Barese (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 55-65 days. Sweet dandelion greens! Cardoncella Barese is a variety distinct from other escaroles, as leaves are long and serrated like a giant dandelion green. Tall leaves can reach 18″ long. When we were market farmers, we offered them by the bunch as ‘sweet dandelion greens’ with rave reviews from our CSA members….

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Escarole, Cornet de la Loire (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 70 days. Impressive, vigorous, and uniform, this escarole is great in spring and autumn. Firm, crunchy, juicy and sweet with a light nutty bitterness unique to escarole. Cornet type escaroles truly shine in late fall through early winter. When sown in late summer, Cornet de la Loire will head up and make a…

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Escarole, Diva (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $124.00
Cichorium endivia. 70 days. Broad-leafed Batavian type endive. Large, loose, green heads are a delicious addition to salad and also good braised or sautéed. Mild even in summer heat, its flavor develops to perfection in the late summer or autumn once nighttime temperatures cool. Diva’s broad leaves are sugary sweet with a tiny hint of…

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Evening Primrose, EP-10 (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $68.00
Oenothera biennis. Biennial. Produces 2″ yellow, sweetly fragrant flowers on 3-5′ tall central stalks from June to September in second year. Leaves and roots are edible, with a peppery taste. Flowers are edible and sweet, may be added to salads or used as a garnish, and are attractive to pollinators. Roots, bark, and seedpods are…

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Fava Bean, Aprovecho Select (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $18.00
Vicia faba. The legendary fava! The biggest fava bean seed we have ever seen and the taste is delicious. The giant plants yield heavily with pods containing four big green seeds each. The young leaves and shoots also make a delicious salad green. Nearly lost forever, or at least from commerce, this fava bean is…

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Fava Bean, Ianto’s Return (Organic)
Rated 4.50 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $22.00
Vicia faba. Mostly large seeds of many colors ranging from tan, yellow, purple, lavender-tan to almost black. High culinary value and adaptive resilience — hangs tough in our winters when other fava varieties wither in the cold. Big plants form many tillers. Young leaves and shoots also make a tasty salad green. Beans can be…

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Fava Bean, Sweet Lorane (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $18.00
Vicia faba. Small seeded favas are usually relegated to cover crop status, but Sweet Lorane was selected to have good, sweet flavor, so it’s an excellent choice for a dual-purpose crop to feed both the soil and the gardener. The flavor is excellent and is especially delicious in fava hummus. Usually sown in autumn for…

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Green Onion, Altai (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $8.15
Allium altaicum. Green Onion/Scallion. 65 days. Perennial to zone 5. The Altai Onion of Siberia is the fabled possible ancestor of Allium fistulosum, the scallion/green onion/bunching onions we all know and love. Rich, spicy flavor and heavy duty winter hardiness make Altai Onion an excellent perennial vegetable. Seemingly a cultivated selection from the wild type,…

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Green Onion, Ton Hom Nuan (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $28.00
Allium fistulosum. Green Onion / Scallion. 65 days. A unique bunching onion from Thailand. Ton Hom Nuan green onion surprised us in its ability to produce tons of small green onions that are perfect for soups, stir frying, and sprinkling into salads. Unlike many Japanese negi type bunching onions, Ton Hom Nuan tend to hold…

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Green Onion, White Spear (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $60.00
Allium fistulosum. Green Onion / Scallion. 60 days. Andrew’s favorite green onion! Dependably produces beautiful bunches of green onions. Upright growth with no flopping, vigorous and easy to clean. So perfect that you don’t even need to cut the tops off. Bright green leaves and white bottoms are tall yet stocky. We have been selecting…

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Kale, Baltic Red (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $24.00
Brassica oleracea. 65 days. Sturdy 2′ tall plants have medium-sized finely curled, red leaves. The whole plants turn a deep purple red, especially after frost. Good yields and very hardy. Mildly flavored leaves turn dark green when cooked. Baltic Red is really quite gorgeous and a great choice for an “edimental,” an edible ornamental. One…

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Kale, Bear Necessities (Organic)
Rated 4.75 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $200.00
Brassica napus. 25 days baby, 50 days full. A finely serrated frilly kale with a tender texture making it suitable for salad mix at all stages of growth. A great cold tolerant variety that is mild, very sweet and adds a lot of volume to salad mix. Larger leaves are also good for bunching and…

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Kale, Dazzling Blue Lacinato (Organic)
Rated 5.00 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $64.00
Brassica oleracea. 30 days baby, 65 days full. We’ve finally found a Lacinato/Dino/Italian type kale that’s special enough to add to our catalog. Dazzling Blue Lacinato is a kale that really lives up to its name. Captivating blue-green leaves on vibrantly purple stems with that classic Lacinato leaf shape plus all the flavor. More vigorous…

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Kale, Gulag Stars (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $180.00
Brassica napus with Brassica rapa crosses. 25 days baby, 50-60 days full. Incredible diversity unlike anything else. A mix of napus kales that have been crossed with B. rapa. Napus leaf types vary through the color spectrum from brilliant red to green to white Russian types; from super frilly to broad-leafed shapes; from skinny, short…

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Kale, Kale Coalition (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $24.00
Brassica oleracea. 30 days baby, 60-70 days full. A diverse genepool mix of 17 oleracea kales and their crosses. Nick Routledge trialed the 17 kales collected on our 2007 Seed Ambassadors trip and this is what happened the next spring. This grex contains a lot of very interesting, diverse kales that are not available in…

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Kale, Madeley (Organic)
Rated 4.17 out of 5
Price range: $4.65 through $64.00
Brassica oleracea. 30 days baby, 60 days full. An extremely vigorous flat leaf, heirloom green kale from England. Hardy, tender and sweet. This kale frequently outgrows every other kale we plant in the summer, and out-produces most other kales through the winter as well. Multiple growth tips produce plentiful sprouting kale raab in spring to…

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Kale, North Star Polaris (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $180.00
Brassica napus. 25 days baby, 50 days full. The first release from our breeding work coming out of the Gulag Stars population. In keeping with the stars theme, we give you North Star Polaris. This participatory breeding project is inspired by the Culinary Breeding Network and we are happy to have Lane Selman and Chef…

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Kale, Pentland Brig (Organic)
Price range: $4.65 through $64.00
Brassica oleracea. 25 days baby, 60 days full. Pentland Brig kale is at the top of the list of the most vigorous B. oleracea kales. It quickly produces copious amounts of lightly-curled green leaves. Robust enough to harvest for market bunches yet tender and sweet enough to win over even kale skeptics. The plants can…

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