Seeds To Sow In January (and February)

Get your growing season started with these seeds you can start in January and in early February.

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What seeds Can You Sow in January?

Seed-starting doesn’t need to be fancy, it just needs to be something that you can hold seed-starting soil in, that is deep enough for the roots to establish. I have many recycled containers for seed starting, milk jugs, water jugs, half-gallon juice or milk cartons, dog treats plastic jars, toilet paper cardboard inserts, coffee cups if I treat my hubby and I to a coffee when we go into town, and mushroom trays are just some of the recycled planting containers I use. I’ve used resealable plastic bags and plastic bread bags to cover the soil and help raise the humidity to help encourage germination too when I didn’t have a seed tray and clear plastic dome.

So let’s talk about some plants you can start right now in late January and early February. I’m zone 4 to 5 so I have a short growing season at around 130 frost-free days in the growing season. So I like to start things indoors and transplant so I can be sure I have a good chance of getting a harvest. The other thing I can do is make sure I grow varieties that have a shorter number of days to maturity that fit in with those 130 growing days. Maybe I choose varieties of summer veggies that are ready in 90 days or 85 days instead.

Celery and Celeriac

Both of these crops can take up to 14 days to germinate and they are slow growing. Start these indoors at least 12 weeks before your last frost date in spring. I’m starting these in the middle of January but you can squeeze in sowing these before the end of January. A heat mat will help coax seeds to germinate and can help cut down germination times. This year I sowed some celery and celeriac using biodynamic techniques and some that were just organic techniques. I’m excited to see which germinate first and how well they grow.

These crops need to be transplanted outside around the last frost in spring so will need a floating row cover and hardening off to be able to settle into their growing space. So an early start is worth it.

Celeriac will bolt or run to seed if it is too cool so don’t transplant that one until the temperatures are above 55°F/12°C and be mindful of where you are starting your seeds. So my house is normally about 55°F, heating oil is expensive, and wearing an extra sweater isn’t so I will need to move my celeriac seedlings to the warmest area to keep them happy and focus on growing the swollen stem we eat rather than thinking they need to produce seeds.

Onions

Bulbing onions and spring onions also known as green onions or bunching onions are also slow-growing veggies. Onions are slow growing that need a lot of light as seedlings. Just like celery and celeriac, onions are started 12 weeks before your last frost date in spring. When bulbing onions get to be about 4 to 5 inches tall give them a little haircut so they are 2 inches tall to encourage more shoots from the baby bulb below. The onion trimmings can be used as seasonings so there’s no waste! Onions, even the spring onions are pretty tolerant of cool weather and can be transplanted before your last frost in spring, they can be planted about 2 to 4 weeks before that last frost date so if your seed starting area is getting crowded, it is always good to know what can be moved outside early! For me, that’s around the last week of April, it could be much earlier than that for you.

Chives

I love chives! Their lilac colored flowers are lovely in the herb garden and the bees just love them! I got my chives in a seed and plant swap that I was at last year but you can also grow them from seeds and I have some garlic chives with white flowers to sow this year and use up the last of my old seeds. Chives are a perennial so they will keep coming back each year and they form these nice grassy clumps that you can divide when they get bigger and share them with a neighbor or another gardening friend or in a plant swap. Or you can plant them in different places around the garden to help deter deer or provide a habitat for beneficial bugs and other critters. I’m going to be putting in some chives around some fruit trees in my planting guilds so if you are wondering where you might want to squeeze more plants into your backyard, don’t forget the space around your fruit trees!

You can start chives like onions and transplant them out around the same time after hardening off. Once established, chives will keep you in onion or garlic flavored leaves for many years to come.

Peppers

Late January or early February is normal for me to be starting my sweet and hot peppers. We grow a lot of hot peppers. My husband loves his spicy food from growing up in Texas and we love making our own chili powder and chili sauce. I like a lot of pepper variety so I grow a bunch of different hot peppers and to my utter delight, the deer here didn’t eat them. My sweet peppers on the other hand the deer loved and kept coming back for more last year.

I start my hot and sweet peppers at the same time, they need the soil to be very warm to encourage germination and some heirlooms can be quite particular about the conditions in which they will germinate. Poblanos, habaneros, and scotch bonnets I remember being particularly troublesome and also needed some light on the seeds to encourage germination but having the heat mat warming that soil helps most peppers germinate and grow. Don’t worry if it takes a long time to germinate though, some pepper varieties can take up to 14 days to germinate.

I will pot on peppers as they get bigger a couple of times before they are transplanted into the garden. Peppers need to go out after all risk of frost has passed so that can be the first week of June for me but it might be a little earlier for you. I like to put out larger plants since I have a short growing season.

Parsley

I like curly parsley, and hubby likes flat-leaf parsley but both are tolerant of cool weather and can tolerate being transplanted around the last frost in spring. Parsley, like chives, is quite slow to germinate and grow which is why it can be sown now indoors.

Eggplant (Aubergine)

Aubergine or eggplant is another member of the nightshade family like potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes. They need warm soil to germinate and are quite slow to grow in a cool house. A heat mat will definitely help these germinate and like celery and peppers, it can take up to 14 days for the seeds to germinate, so start these seeds early too. If you start them in small seed module trays you will need to transplant them into bigger containers as they grow to give the plant more room to grow before they can be transplanted outside. Eggplant needs to be transplanted after all risk of frost has passed.

Rosemary

Another kitchen herb that can be started and is probably my hubby’s favorite. Rosemary doesn’t survive the winter where I live so it will be grown in a container and brought in but the seeds can be started now so the plants have a chance to grow a bit before they can be transplanted out after the frost in a sunny location in the garden. Rosemary is slow growing and definitely needs warmth to grow and starting your rosemary seeds early will help give your plants time to grow before they are moved outside for spring and summer.

Okra

Okra plants are very beautiful to me, the flowers are lovely! Here in the north, an early sowing of okra indoors is going to help you have larger plants to transplant after the risk of frost has passed and more likely to get a harvest. Okra thrives in the heat of summer but starting the seeds can take a while. I have some open-pollinated varieties that I grew and saved seeds from that I’m trying this year.

Tomatillo

Salsa verde here we come! I was surprised how well tomatillos did for us in Maine and starting them early with the peppers and eggplant definitely helps. Tomatillos need warm soil to help the seeds germinate but they can grow quicker than peppers and eggplants so I start these in early February. Grow more than one tomatillo plant to help them pollinate and produce more fruits. They are another plant that needs to be transplanted after the risk of frost has passed outside in the garden.

Spinach

Cool-weather crops like spinach can be started around now so that you can transplant bigger plants into the garden before the last frost. It makes it so that you can get an earlier harvest of greens and early greens like spinach can be covered with some floating row cover or frost fleece to keep the worst of the weather off. I would transplant spinach at the same time as my onions so around the last week of April but in warmer growing zones you could be transplanting as early as April 1 or even late March.

Asian Greens, Kale, Mustard, and Cabbage

Mizuna and tatsoi are my early spring greens and I sow seeds of these outside as I’m transplanting to extend the harvest and get that successional sowing started. Many Asian greens thrive in cooler weather so look out for them as a salad mix to get some early greens from the garden.

They are pretty fast growing and can get leggy if the seedlings don’t have enough light like kale, broccoli, cabbage, mustards, and cauliflower do. But the reason we want to start these around early February is to get bigger plants to transplant out so we can start to get a harvest from the garden earlier. Asian greens can be transplanted under some floating row cover about 4 weeks before the last frost date you want to plants to be about 4 to 6 weeks old before you are transplanting them and you need to harden them off for about 2 weeks before you are transplanting. I like to transplant into another, bigger container, like a 4 inch nursery pot or a coffee cup as they get bigger. If you are in a warmer area you might be able to transplant these cool weather crops 6 weeks before your last frost date if you are using some frost fleece or other frost protection like a cold frame.

Flowers

There are actually a lot of flowers you can start now too. The garden’s favorite of marigolds can take a long time to germinate and need warm soil so I tend to start my marigolds early and transplant them into bigger containers before transplanting into the garden after the risk of frost has passed. I love marigolds in the garden since they help attract beneficial insects and deter pests. Painted tongues, sweet peas, dahlias, hollyhocks, delphiniums, foxgloves, and milkweed are just some that you can start early and transplant out later. Some flowers do better if transplanted out a little before the last frost in spring, and others from warmer climates need to be transplanted after the frost so double-check before you plant them out!

Flowers are a great addition to the garden since they help draw in pollinators that will help pollinate your flowering crops throughout the summer.

Dig In and Learn More

If this post has started ideas for your garden, be sure to check out these related posts and helpful books:

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