Everything you need know to start gardening in January.

Here is your gardening guide for January 2018. I’ve listed it to included USDA hardiness zones 3-10 since its covers 99% of American gardeners.

 

If you don’t know what USDA Plant Hardiness Zone you live in, check the map here to find out.

 

Things to keep in mind for every zone:

• Organize a list of what vegetables you would like to grow and how you would like to grow them. Consider companion planting, raised garden beds, container gardens, and hydroponic systems.
• Order seeds ahead. I grabbed my choices from Amazon here.
• Check out your zone’s planting calendar. It will tell you when you should start growing particular veggies. Click here to see a planting schedule for your zone.

 

Zone 3

• Check your leftover seeds and/or make a list of what you want to grow before ordering.
• Order seeds and plants early to avoid substitution.
• Research and decide what gardening design strategies you would like to use.

Zone 4

• Organize your seeds: Discard those that are too old; then make a list of seeds to order.
• Order seeds of onions, geraniums, and other slow-growing plants now so you receive them in time to start indoors next month.
• create your garden plan.
• Build a garden trellis for veggies that grow up.
• Harvest all greens such as artichokes  during any warmer weather in January.

Zone 5

• Start seeds of pansies and hardy perennials.
• Replenish your supplies, including seed-starting mix and organic fertilizers.
• Where there isn’t much snow cover, push back any plants that have “heaved” out of the ground because of freeze-thaw cycles.
• Order seeds such as broccoli (you can start as soon as March).

 

Zone 6

• Discard old seeds for the garden; mail orders for new seeds.
• Start seeds of pansies, dusty miller, begonias, snapdragons, and delphiniums indoors.
• At month’s end, start seeds of onions, leeks, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower indoors.

Zone 7

• On mild days, remove winter weeds, such as wild onions and chickweed.
• Sow seeds of Shirley poppies (Papaver rhoeas) for bloom in May and June.
• Sow larkspur seeds directly in flowerbeds where you want them to grow; look for blooms by midspring.
• Start seeds of cabbage, early lettuce, and at the end of the month, broccoli.
• When onion and cabbage transplants are available at the garden center, select the best ones, then plant them in the garden beneath a row cover.
• Near the end of the month, weed the asparagus bed and strawberry plot, then feed the plants and renew the thinning mulches.

 

Zone 8

• Shop local nurseries for asparagus roots, strawberry plants, and fruit trees.
• Cover root crops still in the ground with an extra layer of mulch.
• When cold temperatures are predicted, protect transplants of onions, cabbage, broccoli, and chard with a row cover.
• Sow beets, carrots, radishes, cress, bok choy, and garden peas directly in the garden; cover the planting rows with dark compost to warm the soil.
• Sow seeds of herbs, such as dill and parsley.
• Sow seeds of annual flowers such as delphiniums, snapdragons, and larkspur are good choices anywhere you want flowers.
• Top-dress lawns and garden beds with compost.

 

Zone 9

• Use the weather to your advantage: Observe the location of standing puddles left by winter rains; note where you need to improve drainage for plants.
• Finish pruning fruit trees, vines, and bushes.
• Sow seeds of geraniums, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant in pots filled with a peat moss/vermiculite mixture; set the pots on a sunny windowsill until it’s warm enough to plant them outside.
• In the garden, “scratch in” wildflower seed mixes and California poppy seeds; plant nasturtium seeds a bit deeper.
• Set out transplants of pansies, calendulas, and primroses.
• As the soil warms, plant carrots, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, parsley, and Asian greens.
• Harvest carrots, radishes, and Brussels sprouts—sweetened by frost.

Zone 10

• It’s the dry season—water vegetable plants, non-dormant tropical plants, and bedding plants regularly.
• Spray compost tea on roses and bromeliads.
• Mulch peas to extend the harvest.
• Sow pumpkins and winter squash directly in the garden; start cucumbers and watermelons in pots.
• Sow quick-maturing varieties of carrots, broccoli, cabbage, coriander, parsley, and dill.
• Plant heat-tolerant chicory, lettuce, and Swiss chard in shade so that they stay cool when the weather warms.
• Snip off flowers of tropical fruit and young citrus to save their strength while they grow.