What Fast Growing Winter Edibles Are Available In January? Here’s A List Of Rapidly Growing Winter Vegetables From Our Devon Food Forest.
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Winter is usually regarded as a time when plants slow down or even stop growing, but in our food forest and garden we have several Fast Growing Winter Edibles that have kicked into gear and are steaming away.
The thing is, some plants cope with the cold and low light levels better than others and exploit their ability to grow to get ahead of the game. It is their way to outcompete the competition. It might seem unusual but it really isn’t. It is something that is very common and when we see it in late winter or early spring we aren’t surprised. It is this early in the year that surprises most gardeners.
For example many woodland floor plants put on a spurt of growth early in the year. Plants such as primroses, foxgloves, snowdrops, wood anemones and bluebells all grow and flower early. They do it to maximise growth before the leaves are on the trees and the woodland floor loses direct sunlight.
So we shouldn’t be surprised if some plants start growing even earlier. They are real survivors, adept at making th best of every hint of daylight and degree of temperature.
But the real beauty of it for me is that they are also edible plants. They are the plants that our ancestors relied on to get them through wintered early spring.
Today we can get plenty of fruit and veg from the supermarkets. But in centuries gone by knowing these, and the plants, could be the difference between life and death.
My Fast Growing Winter Edibles in January 2025
Alexanders – The Earliest of the Fast Growing Winter Edibles
Alexanders is the earliest of this group of plants here in East Devon. It’s been growing since late autumn and covers the cliff tops plus the hedgerows and wild areas within 4-5 miles of the sea. It’s a plant I have written a lot about, so suffice here to say it was a cottage garden staple until the late 1700s. Now few people recognise it as an edible, if indeed they recognise it at all.
Buckshorn Plantain is a plant I use as a salad crop. It mixes well with other, more traditional salads very well. It is easy to maintain. Though it seed freely I don’t find it invasive as it is easy to hoe or pull out of the ground if it did spread to far. In out food forest it is unlikely to ever become invasive and we want to see it spread a bit further as a ground cover that is easy to control when we want to sow or plant something else.
Cardoon
Cardoon are common in French markets. But ion th eUK that are Vegetable Crops Not Found In Supermarkets
The cardoons in our food forest exceeded two metres in height last summer. The plants then died back and looked dead .. until in November they started to sprout new leaves from the bases of the “dead” plants. Since then they have grown at a rate that has surprised many people.
Soon we can start to blanch some of the leaves for early harvest. The reason for blanching them is to take away the bitterness that is otherwise sometimes associated with the leaves. Blanching is as simple as bunching the leaves as they grow and holding them tougher with a piece of string or, better still, a piece of home grown fibre!
In the next few days I will be sowing the seed I collected from last years flowers. It will be good to have a few more in the food forest as they make a good structural plant addition that will protect many other plants.
Mint
I have large bed of mint in my garden at home. It sits below a Victoria plum tree and is part of the herbaceous layer in this plant guild. Mint is not only good with new potatoes, especially Jersey Royals, but we also eat it in salads.
Arabic recipes such as mint tea, fattoush and tabouleh make use of mint. I’m also rather partial to flatbread with spiced beef and mint.
And ft you don’t want to eat or drink mint then why not just grow it for the pollinators. It attracts huger numbers in my garden.
Perennial Kale
Perennial kale
Perennial kale, aka cottagers kale is a mainstay in my garden. It lasts for 5-7 years and is easily propagated by cuttings. Better still it grows all winter and provides a leaf crop that can be boiled in lightly salted water, can be chiffonade cut as an alternative to spinach in some Indian dishes or even eaten raw in salads.
Perennial kale is another crop I have extensively written about. Follow th link to read more about the types of perennial kale and how to grow them.
Primroses – Another Fast Growing Winter Edible
I almost forgot to add primroses to this list. It was only when I looked out of the window and say them flowering in the garden that I realised I had forgotten them I suppose it is like that when you see a plant every day, you start to take them for granted. I shouldn’t, especially not the primroses as when I was a kid they only bloomed in spring. These days they seem to start flowering in autumn, last all winter and make a real picture in spring when the bulk of them flower. The flowers not only look good outdoors, they look great as an edible flower on a variety of sweet dishes over many months of the year.
Please note I only eat the primrose flowers, not the leaves.
A Last Thought on Fast Growing Winter Edibles
The above are all growing fast in my garden and our food forest in the first week of January. Over the next few weeks I’m sure more plants will be added.
What is early and edible in your garden? Please tell me in the comments section.
