If you don’t know what zone your garden is in, find your USDA hardiness zone here. Enter the code on the security pop-up (it is case-sensitive), then enter your ZIP Code to see your zone. If you click where you live, a window will pop up showing your exact zone info.
What to Do In Your Garden This Month
Zones 1 – 4
- Start a garden journal now, allowing space to record the dates of first and last frosts, seed-planting dates, transplanting, time of bloom, first fruit, fertilizing, problems with pests, and what worked and didn’t work. Over a period of years, this will be an invaluable record.
- Check for winter sales at your local garden center; you can often find deals on pots, planters, and tools.
- Test and replace fluorescent bulbs in grow lights. Also test LED grow lights if you are using them.
- Organize seed packets according to planting date. Start ordering seeds. Do not wait until late in the winter, as varieties may sell out early.
- Try raising an indoor crop of leaf lettuce beneath lights. Plant lettuce in flats and harvest before it’s time to start some of the later seedlings. Artificial light may be required, but the air should not be too hot.
- Sprouts are a good indoor crop now.
Zones 5 – 6
- Draw your garden plan before placing your seed order. Refer to last year’s notes and plan for crop rotation and selection of varieties that did well. Try at least one new variety this year.
- Start ordering seeds. Do not wait until late in the winter, as varieties may sell out early.
- Order onion bulbs now for the best selection, store them in a cool place.
- Wash and sterilize seed-starting containers in 1 part bleach to 9 parts water.
- Start seeds of onions and leeks indoors towards the end of the month for transplanting in early March.
- Start some herbs in containers, such as fresh parsley or garlic chives.
- To give your vegetables an early start, use season-extending devices such as cold frames or hot beds.
- For the earliest tomatoes, start short season tomato seeds under lights at the end of the month. In mid to late April, set out the transplants and protect them with Wall O’ Waters.
- If the ground isn’t frozen, sow some spinach and radishes outdoors under cover.
- Try raising an indoor crop of leaf lettuce beneath lights. Plant lettuce in flats and harvest before it’s time to start some of the later seedlings. Artificial light may be required, but the air should not be too hot.
- Sprouts are an easy and quick crop now.
Zones 7 – 8
- Start seeds of cabbage, early lettuce, and at the end of the month, broccoli.
- Start onion bulbs in the garden underneath a row cover towards the end of the month.
- Sow peas in the garden towards the end of the month. Cover the pea bed with clear plastic until sprouts begin to emerge; then immediately switch to a floating row cover to protect the seedlings from weather and birds.
- Start herb seeds indoors under lights.
- Feed the soil by applying compost to plantings throughout your landscape: trees, shrubs, lawn, and all garden beds.
- Continue sowing pollinator attracting flower seeds directly into flowerbeds and flowers for cuttings.
- Try sprouts for a quick, fresh green vegetable in less than a week.
Zones 9 – 10
- Build the soil! During dry spells, dig in composted manure and garden waste; turn under cover crops such as annual rye, vetch, and clover.
- Start seeds of beloved summer vegetables—tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant—indoors under lights. In hotter climates (southern AZ, desert CA & NV, southern TX and southern FL) don’t delay getting them started to have fruit before the June heat arrives.
- Direct-seed radishes, spinach, carrots, peas, onions, and cabbage family vegetables so you can harvest a crop before the real heat sets in.
- Later this month, plant corn and cucumbers in the garden, but be prepared to protect them from a surprise frost.
- Set out transplants of hot peppers; be prepared to protect them from frost and, as the weather warms, from intense sunlight.
- Also later this month, start southern favorites such as okra, southern peas, and sweet potatoes that love the heat.