Hey Ray - welcome, I am also fairly new to winter gardening, have only been trying it for a couple years. I've had some success and failures! I usually start my seeds in the house, then when they germinate move them under lights in an unheated shop. When they have a couple of sets of leaves I move them out to my raised beds. The beds are covered with pvc hoops and greenhouse plastic. Where I live in the Pacific Northwest, it is fairly mild in winter, rarely getting below 20 degrees. I've had good success with cole crops - broccoli,collards, kale ect. Some of the really cold hardy lettuces and of course Asian greens. I also have a carrot patch that usually lasts most of the winter with extra mulch. What kind of weather do you have up there? And what kind of crops will you try?

good luck Huckleberry1

I have played with winter gardening a bit, some before my twins were born, then last fall/winter and again this fall.

So far I have underestimated how much time I needed to get the crops to harvest size, or even near it, when I planted. In my previous attempts, I had some success with spinach and carrots, but they were small. I forgot that experience when I planted last fall, and once again my carrots were finger-sized and sparse, and my spinach only provided a full side-dish once or twice. My lettuce was a complete failure last winter, as were my cabbages.

This year I concentrated on lettuce, and got them in early enough that they are looking GREAT. But my kids were upset that I hadn't planted carrots (which they LOVED), so I put some in late. They are even smaller than last winter! And once again my cabbages are a failure.

Anyway, my advice is to check your days to maturity, add at least 2 weeks to make up for the cooling weather as fall approaches, and plant extra carrots (g).

Catherine

I'm hoping to get some things in the ground by mid to late summer to give them a chance to grow a bit before the cold stops them. I'm hoping to have carrots, cabbage, broccoli, corn salad and lettuce. The biggest problem with cold frames will be making sure they're opened during the day.
I live on a plateau somewhat inland. Summers are fairly hot but dry with daytime temps around 30°C (85°F), occasionally higher, and nights around 8°C (45°F). Winters are cold with usual night temps around -5°C (23°F) but wind chill can take it down to -35°C (-35°F). Days average around 12°C (53°F) unless there's cloud cover. The ground doesn't normally freeze and there's usually very little snow. The frosts are heavy though, running from around mid April to mid October.
The winter skies are usually clear and my hothouse (a small affair for seedling raising) can get pretty hot on an unusually warm winter day. I'm expecting that cold frames will behave similarly though I have no experience with them. I've got a couple of thermometers to monitor them until I get a feel for how well they trap heat.

The four-season approach made me realize that what people call the "growing season" out here is just a three-month hot spell that facilitates hot-weather crops. But there's a nine-month season for growing everything else!
-O

I, too, was converted by Coleman's book. I have two coldframes with greenhouse solr-operated vent openers that open the lids. It took some creative counterbalancing to get the 15 pound limit on the opener to lift the heavy glass but it was woth it because one forgotten day of sunshine can roast four months worth of work. Peaceful Valley Supply and Farmtek are good sources for openers. And timing, as Catherine N M says, is crucial for actually getting something to eat. Let us know how you do.

I use some clear skylight covers for temporary cold frames. They are made out of some sort of plastic or acrylic (Lexan?) material and they don't allow much heat to build up. They were left overs from a building being built at a place I used to work, my boss let me have two of them and he took the others. They messure almost 5 feet square and the center height is about 16 inches. This year I build up a wall of cinder blocks but in the past I just placed them over a section of the garden where I wanted a crop to make it past first frost. They are kinda heavy and awkward to move around but they don't need venting on sunny days and make some phenominal lettuce harvests all winter long here in zone 7b.

I've searched the internet for more of them and can only find smoked glass versions and they are very expensive. If I ever end up around a construction site with left over skylight covers I will do whatever it takes to get a few more of these.

I know these will be hard to come by - but I wanted to point out that there are certain plastic coveringst that don't have the heat build up problems that glass has.

(I'm willing to share photos but the service I use to park my pictures only shares tiny versions of the photo when I post them on GardenWeb - so someone that knows more about that will have to email me and I can email the photos back and they can post them.)

Welcome aboard Raymondo. I use a mini hoophouse to extend
the lettuce and salad green harvest and a coldframe with a
small ceramic heater early spring to start seeds.

Swanz

I'm growing lettuce in an unheated greenhouse with floating row covers over the raised beds. The greenhouse is attached to the house. The outside temps have dropped to 12º F., but the temp under the row covers hasn't gone below the high 20's. I'm picking enough lettuce for a daily salad now. I started with about a dozen varieties, but the ones doing the best are Little Gem, Lollo Rosa, Red Sails, and Royal Okaleaf. I also have arugula and mache. I have sweet peas (the flower) about two feet high, but no blooms yet.

On sunny days, the inside temps go into the 60's and I can take off the row covers and water everything. This is the first year I've had a greenhouse. I'm not sure if anything will actually survive the winter, but I'm having fun trying.

MJ