Five Fast Growing Winter Vegetables

Are you geared up to plant some winter vegetables, but don’t want to wait a whole season to reap what you sow? Thankfully, some do grow faster than others.

As our lifeline to nature, Aussies have flocked to gardening in droves as a new way to pass the time while making the most of the great outdoors. Aside from developing a new hobby, gardening offers a wide range of benefits such as stress management, accidental exercise, and a natural dose of Vitamin D. 

The first port of call for many budding green thumbs is to create a vegetable patch. While relatively easy to maintain, the efforts of gardeners are usually rewarded with a range of herbs, fruits and vegetables that can be used to provide all sorts of sustenance – even during the coldest months of the year. 

Winter Vegetables To Grow That Mature Quickly 

One of the key pillars of a successful veggie patch is knowing what to plant and when. While options for winter vegetables to grow are vast, not everyone is so keen on having to wait weeks or months for the first shoots to appear out of the soil. 

To avoid potential disappointment, it’s worth getting to know the growth cycles of your potential plants. As an example, some leafy vegetables are ready for harvest in as little as six weeks, while some root winter vegetables can take up to four months to start emerging from the soil. 

Thankfully, there are plenty of winter vegetables that are known to grow faster than others. If you or the smaller members of your household face a shortage of patience, the good news is that you don’t have to wait an entire season to yield a decent crop. 

Carrots – Carrots should be ready for harvest between sixty and eighty days after planting, and the diameter of their roots will often indicate when they’re ready to come out of the soil. For a quicker winter veggie option that roasts up much more sweetly than the larger varieties, baby carrots can also be harvested in as little as fifty days. 

Kale – As one of nature’s best superfoods, kale is one of the healthiest winter vegetables that gardeners could possibly hope for. Fully matured plants are ready for harvest after sixty days, but smaller baby kale varieties can be ready in as little as twenty one days after they are sown. Look for healthy plants with upwards of six to ten leaves, and you’re ready to roll. 

Lettuce – Lettuce is a cool-season crop, so in hotter winter climates like Queensland, you may get better results growing it in a cooler, shadier spot that still offers at least six hours of sunlight. Along with being a staple in many types of salads, the best part is that lettuces can be ready for harvest in as little as thirty days, or when your lettuce is big enough based on your preferences.

Spinach – Much like lettuce, spinach varieties thrive in cooler temperatures. Most mature in thirty to fifty days, and can be harvested as soon as it is a rosette with five or six leaves. Baby spinach leaves have a sweeter flavour and a more tender texture, and spinach leaves should be removed before they get yellow and within a week of full leaf formation.

Radish – Although not everybody’s favourite type of winter vegetable, garden radishes are usually ready for harvest three to five weeks after planting. In addition, hungry green thumbs can pull them any time they reach a usable size, but they will get fibrous and develop a strong taste if left in the ground for too long. 

To mimimise the growth of fungal diseases such as powdery mildew and leaf spot, it’s important for gardeners to ensure good air circulation through good soil health, adequate spacing, and to avoid directly watering the leaves of the plants. Thankfully, there’s now a way to supercharge your soil before the onset of the first frosts, and give your winter vegetables their best possible shot at reaching adulthood and onto your dinner plate. 

How To Give Your Plants A Boost Before Winter 

Do your plants – and yourself – a favour, and give them a head start by optimising your soil prior to planting. By adding a natural garden probiotic like Biotic Booster, this will help your garden to: 

• Provide essential nutrients and microbes 
• Act as a liquid fertiliser to unlock your soil’s potential 
• Drought proof your plants and lower water consumption
• Increase and speed up the germination process
• Assist in protecting your plants from pests and diseases 
• Provide an organic solution that’s safe to use around your herbs, fruit and veggies

If you’re ready to take the leap into improving the health of your plants while minimising the use of chemical based fertilisers this Autumn, then it may be time to try a plant food and probiotics. Our Ultimate Garden Health Pack includes our Biotic Booster, FP-60 Probiotic Spray,  RE-250 Soil Energiser, plant food and plant probiotic products. In each concentrated bottle, millions of natural bacterias are waiting to find a new home in your garden.

Here at Bioweed, we specialise in environmentally friendly gardening products, including herbicides, plant food and plant probiotics, and natural alternatives to traditional gardening solutions. Should you have any questions about how to improve the sustainability of your garden, get in touch with us today.