This document discusses growing cool season vegetables on farms. Cool season vegetables grow best at temperatures around 15 degrees cooler than warm season crops. They include vegetables with edible leaves, roots, flowers, or seeds. Examples listed are lettuce, carrots, broccoli, and peas. Producing vegetables requires more intensive management than field crops, including irrigation, fertilization, and pest and weed control. Factors to consider for production include site selection, cultivar choice, soil and nutrient management, irrigation, and pest and disease control. Cropping systems may include monocultures, intercropping, or sequential cropping. Production practices covered are tillage, planting, fertilizer application, irrigation, and controlling weeds, diseases,

1. Growing Cool Season
Vegetables on Your Farm

2. What is a Cool Season Vegetable?
• Grow best at temps averaging
15° cooler than by warm season
types.
• Many have edible leaves or roots
(lettuce, spinach, carrots, and
radishes),
• Others (artichokes, broccoli,
cauliflower) are grown for their
immature flowers,
• A few (peas, broad beans)
produce edible seeds.
• Most can endure short periods
of frost.
• Grow in cool weather; or can
turn bitter tasting, or bolt to
seed.
• Plant early spring so the crop
will mature before summer heat,
or in late summer for a crop in
fall or winter.

3. Cool Season Vegetable Examples
• Arugula
• Beets
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Collards
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chard
• Fennel
• Kale
• Kohlrabi
• Lettuce
• Mizuna
• Mustard greens
• Onions
Pak choi (Bok
choy)
Peas
Potatoes
Radishes
Spinach
Coriander
(cilantro)

4. Important Factors for Production
• Vegetables are a high value crop
• More intensively managed than agronomic crops
• Irrigation, fertilization, weed and pest management are all required
for success
• Both mechanical and manual harvesting
• Critical post-harvest handling practices

5. Production Points to Consider
• Site Selection
• Cultivar Selection
• Planting, Transplanting, &
Culture
• Soils & Nutrient Management
• Irrigation
• Harvest, Handling and Storage
• Insect & Disease Management
• Environmental Disorders
• Weed Management
• Marketing

6. Cropping Systems
• Most vegetable production in the U.S. relies on intensive monoculture
• Geared to mechanization and specialization, favors large farmers
• Crop rotation helps control diseases, weeds, insects; preserves soil nutrients
• Alternative systems used
• Intercropping
• Sequential Cropping

7. Production Practices
• Soil Preparation
• Conventional Tillage
• Plowing and disking for seed
bed preparation
• Raised beds and plastic
mulching
• Conservation Tillage
• Planting into crop residue to
reduce soil erosion
• Weed and Soil Temperature
Problems
• Planting
• Direct Seeding
• Seed bed preparation is critical
• Requires longer growing
season
• Indirect Seeding – transplanting
• Extends growing season
• Promotes early maturity

8. Production Practices
• Fertilizer Application
• Depends on soil type, soil analysis
and crop requirements
• Timing and site of application
• Starter solutions for seedlings
and transplants
• Side dressing application for
established crops
• Foliar application and
fertigation
• Irrigation
• Important for high value vegetable
crops
• Timely irrigation increases both
crop yield and quality
• Efficient use of water reduces
costs and minimizes other
problems
• Many different methods available
for irrigation

9. Production Practices
• Weed Control
• Weeds compete for resources,
harbor pests, reduce crop quality
• Many methods to control weeds
• Cultivation
• Cover Crops
• Mulches
• Herbicides
• Disease & Pest Control
• Microbes and insects
• Genetic resistance
• Important goal in plant breeding
• Integrated pest management
• Uses a variety of approaches to keep
damage below economic thresholds
including organic and biodynamic
• Pesticides

10. Production Practices
• Harvest
• Mechanical
• Requires specialized
equipment, production
methods
• Manual
• Labor intensive, expensive
• The early crop gets top $$$
• Post-harvest handling
• Practices that reduce losses in
quality and quantity of crops
between harvest and consumption
• Losses are estimated at 5-25% in
developed countries, 25-50%
elsewhere

11. Resources and Marketing
• Many producers grow vegetables
under contract to processors
• Without a market, event the best
quality produces will not make a
profit
• Consumer demands change
rapidly
• Growing demand for organic
produce and convenience foods
• Farmers markets provide an outlet
for local growers