- 2 days ago
When winter drops to -23°F, a simple garden can still stay alive, green, and harvestable without heat, electricity, or expensive equipment. Elias explains how a winter garden survives brutal freezes by trapping warmth from the sun and soil, blocking wind, and using layered protection instead of trying to warm the whole garden.
He walks through cold frames, low tunnels, inner row covers, mulch, and the old habit of adding stones or water containers to store daytime heat and release it at night. He also shows which cold-hardy crops can handle deep frost, including spinach, kale, lettuce, leeks, parsley, carrots, and parsnips, and why these vegetables often taste sweeter after freezing weather. The focus is on fall planting, winter garden care, and keeping a living food supply under snow.
This is practical homestead gardening for people who want to grow food through winter, protect crops from hard freezes, and understand how a no-heat cold frame or low tunnel really works. It is especially useful for winter gardening, cold weather gardening, backyard growing, and simple off-grid food storage in the ground.
SEO: winter garden, cold frame gardening, low tunnel garden, cold weather gardening, winter gardening tips, cold hardy vegetables, homestead gardening, no heat greenhouse, frost protection, growing food in winter, garden survival in freezing temperatures, backyard vegetable garden, off-grid gardening.
He walks through cold frames, low tunnels, inner row covers, mulch, and the old habit of adding stones or water containers to store daytime heat and release it at night. He also shows which cold-hardy crops can handle deep frost, including spinach, kale, lettuce, leeks, parsley, carrots, and parsnips, and why these vegetables often taste sweeter after freezing weather. The focus is on fall planting, winter garden care, and keeping a living food supply under snow.
This is practical homestead gardening for people who want to grow food through winter, protect crops from hard freezes, and understand how a no-heat cold frame or low tunnel really works. It is especially useful for winter gardening, cold weather gardening, backyard growing, and simple off-grid food storage in the ground.
SEO: winter garden, cold frame gardening, low tunnel garden, cold weather gardening, winter gardening tips, cold hardy vegetables, homestead gardening, no heat greenhouse, frost protection, growing food in winter, garden survival in freezing temperatures, backyard vegetable garden, off-grid gardening.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I am going to tell you something you will not believe.
00:03In the dead of winter, when it is 20 and 30 degrees below zero out,
00:09cold enough to crack the trunk of a tree with a sound like a gunshot,
00:13I can walk out to my garden through the snow, lift a simple cover,
00:18and pick fresh, green, living food, sweet and crisp, with my bare hand.
00:25No stove, no fire, no wire of power, nothing burning anywhere.
00:31And it has been alive out there, green and growing,
00:35through cold that would kill a man in minutes.
00:39Folk tell me it cannot be done, that nothing lives through such cold.
00:43They are wrong, and it is an old thing, and by the end of this,
00:48I will have shown you exactly how, so that you can walk out into your own worst winter
00:54and pick fresh greens from under the snow.
00:57I am Elias, and growing food through the cold, without a stove, nor a wire of power,
01:04is a thing my people understand well, for we have always done it,
01:09and it is a wonder, so let me hand you the whole way of it.
01:13Quick word before I go further.
01:15The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
01:21I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:26The book is the long version.
01:28If you want it, it is there.
01:30I will not mention it again.
01:32I remember as a boy going out with my grandmother into the deep of winter,
01:37the snow to our knees, and the cold enough to sting,
01:41and lifting the old window off her cold frame to find, under there,
01:45green growing spinach and mosh, fresh and sweet, in the dead of January,
01:52while all the world outside lay frozen and white and dead.
01:56It seemed pure magic to me then.
01:59It is no magic, Elias, she said.
02:02I only trap the little warmth the Lord still sends in winter and keep the wind off it.
02:07She fed us fresh greens all through the hardest winters that way,
02:12with never a stove nor a wire.
02:14So let me hand you how she did it.
02:16First, the one great idea you must understand, for the whole thing rests on it,
02:22that you do not heat a winter garden.
02:25You trap heat and you block the wind.
02:28Here is the thing.
02:29There is warmth to be had even in the dead of winter.
02:32The sun, weak as it is, still shines and warms by day,
02:37and the earth itself holds a deep stored warmth from the summer
02:41that leaks slowly up all winter and never freezes far down.
02:45So the secret is not to make heat, which needs a fire,
02:49but to catch and hold the heat that is already there,
02:53the day's thin sun and the earth's deep warmth,
02:56and above all, to block the killing wind that would strip it all away.
03:00For it is the wind, the bitter wind,
03:03that kills a plant in the deep cold as much as the cold itself,
03:08drying and stripping the warmth off it.
03:10So, trap the sun's warmth, hold the earth's, and block the wind,
03:15and you make under your cover a little world far warmer than the cruel open air.
03:21Catch the heat that is there and block the wind.
03:24That is the whole secret.
03:25And there is an old trick to catch and hold yet more of that warmth,
03:29to set something heavy within your frame that soaks up the day's heat
03:34and gives it back slow by night.
03:36What the old folk knew without a name for it.
03:39A few large stones or a dark barrel or jugs of water set in the frame
03:44soak up the sun's warmth all through the bright day,
03:47and then through the cold night they give that stored warmth
03:51slowly back into the air of the frame,
03:54holding it warmer till morning, as a warmed brick warms a bed.
03:58So, set a few stones or a dark jug of water in your frame
04:02to store the day's heat and give it back by night,
04:06and it rides the cold nights warmer still.
04:09Now, the plain way you do that,
04:11the cold frame or the low tunnel,
04:13a simple cover over your bed.
04:15The cold frame is a low box set over the bed with a clear lid,
04:19an old window laid over a frame of boards,
04:22slanted to the south to catch the low winter sun.
04:25Or the low tunnel, a few hoops of wire or withe bent over the bed
04:30with a clear cover laid over them,
04:32a little low glass house over the whole row.
04:35Either one does the great work,
04:38for through its clear top the weak winter sun shines in by day
04:42and warms the ground and the air within,
04:45and the cover holds that warmth in through the night
04:48and blocks the wind off entirely,
04:51so that under there, out of the wind,
04:53with the day's sun caught and the earth's warmth held,
04:57it stays many degrees warmer than the bitter air outside,
05:01warm enough to keep a hardy plant alive through a cold
05:05that would kill it bare.
05:07A cold frame or a covered tunnel over the bed
05:10and you have your little warmed world.
05:14Now here is the trick that carries it through the very worst cold,
05:18the deep 20 below,
05:20and it is the old secret the fancy ways forget.
05:24A cover inside a cover.
05:27Layers.
05:28For one cover alone,
05:30the frame or the tunnel
05:32will carry your garden through a hard, ordinary freeze.
05:35But when the truly brutal cold comes,
05:39the deep below zero,
05:41one cover is not enough.
05:43And here is what you do.
05:44You put a second cover inside the first.
05:48A low-light row cover,
05:50a cloth or a light sheet,
05:52draped right over the plants themselves
05:55there inside the frame or tunnel.
05:57And now you have two still pockets of air,
06:01one trapped under the outer cover
06:03and another trapped under the inner one
06:05right over the plants.
06:07And two blankets of still air
06:09hold the warmth far better than one,
06:12each adding its shelter
06:14so that under two covers
06:16your plants ride through a cold
06:18that one cover alone
06:19could never carry them through.
06:22It is the same as a man wearing two coats
06:25against the bitter day
06:26rather than one great one.
06:28The layers of still air between them
06:31are the warmth.
06:32A cover inside a cover
06:34and your garden survives the deepest cold.
06:39Now, which plants?
06:41For this only works with the right ones.
06:43So heed it.
06:45You do not grow tender things
06:47in a winter garden.
06:49No tomato nor pepper
06:51would live a night of it under any cover.
06:54You grow the hardy, cold-loving crops,
06:57the ones made for the cold.
06:59And there are a good many fine ones,
07:02the kale,
07:03the spinach,
07:04the mosh or corn salad,
07:06the leeks,
07:07the collards,
07:08the hardy winter lettuces,
07:10the parsley,
07:11and the root crops
07:12like carrots and parsnips
07:14left right in the ground.
07:16These hardy kinds
07:17take a hard freeze and live.
07:20And here is the wonder of them.
07:22The cold does not just spare them,
07:25it sweetens them.
07:26For a hardy plant in the frost
07:29turns its own starch to sugar
07:31within itself to keep from freezing.
07:34So your winter kale and spinach and carrots
07:37come out of the cold sweeter and finer
07:40than any you grew in the warm.
07:42So grow only the hardy, cold-lovers,
07:46and the very cold that would kill a tender plant
07:49makes these the sweetest food of the year.
07:53The hardy greens and roots,
07:55sweetened by the cold,
07:57they survive.
07:59Now here is a plain, honest truth
08:01you must understand,
08:03or you will be puzzled,
08:05that in the deep of winter
08:06these plants do not grow,
08:09they hold.
08:11For a plant needs warmth
08:13and the long light of the longer days to grow,
08:16and in the short, dark, cold days of midwinter
08:20there is too little of either.
08:21So your winter garden near stops growing
08:24and simply sits,
08:26alive but still,
08:29holding.
08:30So the way to think of it
08:31is not a garden growing through the winter,
08:34but a living larder,
08:36a store of fresh food
08:38held alive and fresh
08:40in the cold under its cover
08:41that you go out and harvest from
08:44on the milder days,
08:46a leaf here,
08:47a root there,
08:48as you need it.
08:50You did your growing in the fall,
08:52and the winter garden
08:53just keeps that harvest
08:55alive and fresh
08:56and sweet in the ground
08:58instead of in a cellar.
09:00So plant it in good time in the fall
09:03to grow up before the deep cold,
09:06and then through winter
09:07you are harvesting a held crop,
09:10not growing a new one.
09:13Grow it in fall,
09:14harvest it all winter,
09:16held alive,
09:17under cover.
09:18And here is the timing
09:19most folk get wrong,
09:21that you must sow and grow
09:23these winter crops
09:24earlier in the fall
09:25than you would ever think,
09:27while there is still good growing weather
09:29and length of day,
09:30so they come to a good size
09:32before the short,
09:33dark,
09:34cold days
09:35shut growth down,
09:36for a tiny seedling
09:37going into the deep winter
09:39will only sit tiny
09:41and give you nothing,
09:42where a well-grown plant
09:44holds a full harvest
09:45through the cold.
09:47So count back
09:48from your first hard frost
09:50and sow in good time,
09:52weeks before,
09:53to have them grown
09:54and ready to hold,
09:56grown before the cold,
09:57not planted into it.
10:00Now the snow,
10:01which folk think the enemy
10:03and is truly a friend,
10:05a free blanket.
10:06For snow,
10:08strange as it sounds,
10:09is a warm blanket
10:11full of trapped air
10:12and a thick blanket of snow
10:14lying over your covers
10:15and your beds
10:16insulates them,
10:18holds the warmth of the earth
10:20in beneath it,
10:21so that under a good snow
10:23the ground stays far warmer
10:25than the bitter open air above.
10:27So do not always rush
10:29to knock the snow
10:30off your covers,
10:31for a blanket of it
10:33helps hold the warmth.
10:34Except brush off
10:36a heavy, wet snow
10:37that might crush your cover
10:39or block too much light
10:41too long.
10:42But a good, dry snow overall
10:44is a free blanket
10:46nature lays down for you.
10:48Let the snow blanket your beds,
10:51for it holds the warmth in.
10:53Now a few plain cares
10:55to see it through.
10:57Sight your frames and beds
10:59in the sunniest spot,
11:00against the south side
11:02of a building,
11:02or a wall if you can,
11:04for a wall gathers
11:06and throws back
11:07the sun's heat
11:08and blocks the north wind
11:10both,
11:10the warmest spot there is
11:12in winter.
11:13And mind the sunny days,
11:16for on a bright winter day
11:17the sun through the cover
11:19can warm it up surprisingly
11:20inside,
11:22even hot,
11:23so you crack the cover
11:24open a bit
11:25on a mild sunny day
11:26to let the heat
11:27and the damp out,
11:29or your plants cook
11:30or rot
11:31in the trapped wet,
11:32and shut it up again
11:34before evening
11:35to hold the warmth
11:36for the night.
11:37And water but little,
11:39and only on a mild day
11:41when it will not freeze,
11:43for a winter garden
11:44under cover
11:45drinks very little,
11:46barely growing,
11:48and too much wet
11:49in the cold
11:50rots it.
11:51Sight it in the sun
11:52by a wall,
11:54air it on sunny days,
11:55water seldom,
11:57and shut it warm
11:58by night.
11:59Now let me say
12:01a small, plain word,
12:03not a who-profits sermon,
12:05for a winter
12:06is no one's scheme.
12:08But notice
12:09that this whole wonder,
12:10fresh food
12:11through a twenty below winter,
12:13took no heat,
12:14no stove,
12:15no power,
12:17no great cost,
12:19only an old window
12:20or a few hoops
12:22and a cloth,
12:23the hardy old crops,
12:25and the knowing
12:26of how to trap
12:27the warmth
12:27that is already there.
12:29There is a whole trade
12:31in heated greenhouses
12:33and growing lights
12:34and the great cost
12:35of heating a glass house
12:37through the winter,
12:38when the old way
12:39grows fresh winter greens
12:41with no heat at all,
12:43just by catching the sun
12:45and blocking the wind
12:47under a simple cover.
12:49So folk come to think
12:50winter food
12:51must be either bought
12:53or grown
12:54at great cost
12:55under heat,
12:56when a cold frame
12:57and a cloth
12:58and the hardy greens
13:00give it for near nothing.
13:02That old knowing
13:04of working with the winter's
13:05own small warmth
13:07rather than fighting the cold
13:09with a costly fire
13:10is worth more than
13:12any heated glass house.
13:14So there is how
13:15a winter garden
13:16survives the bitterest cold
13:18with no heat.
13:20Know that you do not heat it,
13:22you trap the sun's
13:24and the earth's own warmth
13:25and block the killing wind
13:27under a cold frame
13:29or a covered tunnel.
13:31Add a cover
13:32inside the cover,
13:33layers of still air
13:35to carry it
13:36through the deepest cold.
13:38Grow only the hardy,
13:40cold-loving greens
13:41and roots
13:42which the cold sweetens
13:44as it spares.
13:45Understand that they hold
13:47through the deep winter
13:48rather than grow,
13:50a living larder
13:51you harvest from
13:52grown in the fall.
13:55Let the snow
13:56blanket your beds
13:57for it holds the warmth
13:58and sight it in the sun
14:00by a wall,
14:02air it on bright days
14:03and water seldom.
14:05Do these
14:06and even at twenty
14:08and more below
14:09with never a fire
14:10you will have sweet,
14:12fresh, green food
14:14from your own garden
14:15in the dead of winter
14:17when all the world
14:19thinks nothing can grow.
14:21Now I want to hear from you.
14:24Tell me down below
14:25how cold your winters run
14:27and whether you had ever
14:28believed a garden
14:29could live through such cold
14:31with no heat at all
14:33for it astonishes
14:34near everyone
14:35and whether you will try
14:36a cold frame
14:37or a covered row
14:39this winter.
14:40And tell me your county
14:41for the colder
14:42your country
14:43the more of a wonder
14:44and a blessing
14:45this is,
14:46fresh, green food
14:48where you thought
14:49there could be none.
14:50I read every one.
14:53Next time
14:54I want to show you
14:55the building
14:56of that cold frame
14:57and that covered tunnel
14:58in full
14:59step by step
15:01the old way
15:02to make one
15:02from a cast off window
15:04and some boards
15:05or a few hoops
15:06and a bit of cover
15:07for little or nothing
15:09so that you can build
15:10your own little
15:11warmed world
15:12over a bed
15:13and grow through
15:14the cold yourself.
15:16The old people
15:17did not let the winter
15:18beat them
15:19nor go hungry
15:20for fresh green
15:21through the cold.
15:22They worked
15:23with the winter's
15:24own thin warmth
15:26catching the weak sun
15:27and the earth's
15:28deep heat
15:29under a simple cover
15:31and blocking
15:32the bitter wind
15:33and so ate
15:34sweet fresh greens
15:36from under the snow
15:37while the world
15:38lay frozen and bare
15:40with never a fire
15:41to do it.
15:42There is a quiet
15:43wisdom in that
15:44in not fighting
15:45the winter
15:46with costly heat
15:47but working
15:48with the small warmth
15:49it still gives
15:50in finding fresh life
15:52and food
15:53in the very dead
15:54of the cold.
15:55The people who built
15:57this country
15:57with their hands
15:58knew that
15:59and we are only
16:00just starting
16:01to remember it.