Vegetable Seeds To Sow In January

January might feel like the darkest, coldest month, and the garden slowly slipping into dormancy for the last couple of months of winter, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get a head start on next year’s growing season.

While January is a great month for planning out this year’s veg patch and ordering seeds, it’s also the ideal time to start sowing certain vegetables indoors, undercover or in a greenhouse — without the extra time it would be impossible to get a harvest in mild or cold climates.

In this article, we’ll run through the list of seeds to sow in January and how to overcome the lack of light and heat in this inhospitable month. There are also some seeds which, if you’re feeling ambitious, could be started now for some very early harvests this year.

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Onions Should Be Sown In January

If there is one seed you should sow in January, it should be onions. It’s the cheapest way of growing one of the most important crops in the global diet and is more far cost effective than buying onion sets. January and February are the perfect time to sow onion seeds.

They also need all the time you can give them to form large attractive bulbs, ready to win gold at the village show.

You can sow onion seeds by filling a seed tray or propagator cell tray with fine compost. Sow seeds into the surface, approximately 1 cm apart, before gently firming them in and covering loosely with more compost. Give them a sprinkle of water and leave them somewhere warm indoors to germinate.

In a few weeks you’ll be able to separate the seedlings into their own containers for growing on until its warm enough to plant them in the ground. You can then harvest them by the end of the summer or into autumn, before letting them cure so they are ready to be stored right the way up to next year’s harvest.

White varieties like Stuttgart or red varieties like Red Zeppelin or Red Baron are great storers, while Sturon is an RHS AGM variety that is a great all-rounder that’s resistant to bolting and disease, and it tastes great and stores well.

Sow Chilli Peppers In January

Peppers can take an awfully long time to grow in mild temperate climates. If they are going to be ready to make the most of the sun and warmth towards the end of summer and produce ripe fruits, you’ll need to sow them early and give them that extra time or use a greenhouse to speed up ripening.

Growing chilli peppers, sweet peppers and bell peppers at home is one of the best ways of saving money by growing your own food, given their high retail price and low maintenance. Home-grown peppers also have a significantly longer shelf-life than anything you can buy in a store.

If you want to grow your own, you can start by following this step-by-step guide on how to sow chilli pepper seeds.

You can sow chilli peppers throughout January and February, then take the time to harden them off through April and May, before planting them out after your last frost — ideally waiting until overnight temperatures are above 10°C or 50°F.

I like to grow chillies like De Cayenne, Padron, Habanero and Portugal, while sweet peppers like Corno di Toro Rosso perform well outdoors in my garden in the East of England. Bell peppers like King of the North do well in cooler climates, while California Wonder will benefit from additional warmth.

Pepper seeds are relatively expensive so, to maximise germination rates, you should follow this recipe for the ideal seed starting mix.

Increase Germination Rates By Making The Best Seed Starting Mix

And Aubergines (or Eggplants)

Aubergines (sometimes called ‘eggplants’) are seen as a challenging crop to grow in the UK as they prefer a warm climate. But if you pick a fast growing variety and put the plant in a warm location (ideally on concrete and against a brick wall) with full sun exposure, you can grow them easily.

You can sow Aubergines by following a similar method to chilli peppers and, as far as I can tell, they also benefit from being soaked beforehand.

Varieties like Moneymaker are quick growers and high yielding. But gardeners tend to lean towards Black Beauty which has a more consistent and deep purple colour, or Pinstripe or Listada de Gandia which have a series of white stripes along their length.

And if you really must insist on calling aubergines ‘eggplants’, you could always try growing actual eggplants (they are a white variety of aubergine).

Try Sowing Radishes Under Cover

Radishes are renowned for being fast growers and requiring little space which makes them perfect for growing in small containers. If you sow them in January, then you must grow them in a greenhouse or under cloches to protect them from frosts. In mild years, you might harvest as soon as late March.

Not all varieties are suitable for growing this early, so look at the back of the seed packet before sowing. Summer radish varieties like Sparkler and Icicle are probably best suited, while winter radish varieties are best sown in autumn for harvesting now.

They will grow much slower in cooler weather and their already-spindly stems might become even more so in northern climes where the daylight hours are relatively few. But radishes are one of the few root crops that you can grow from seed to harvest this time of year.

If you’re not feeling so brave, waiting until March could be a safer option.

Sow Herb Seeds In January

Basil is one of the first plants I ever grew, nurturing a supermarket plant for about a year until I travelled to Australia for a month and it dried up. That plant taught me how much tastier fresh herbs are than anything pre-picked or dried and how much of a joy it is to have an indoor herb garden.

And the price of dried herbs feels surreal after growing your own…

The good news is that you can grow most herbs entirely indoors, which means you can get going now, generally by very shallowly or surface sowing the seeds and covering (perhaps with cling film or cardboard) to keep the soil surface damp.

Once the seeds germinate, uncover them and give them as much light as you can. Let them grow to at least become adolescent plants before harvesting in a cut-and-come-again fashion for fresh herbs all year round.

Basil, thyme, oregano, sage, dill, coriander (cilantro) are relatively easy to grow from seed. Rosemary is perhaps the hardest to germinate (taking up to a month and having the lowest germination rate by far) and it might be easier to grow this one from cuttings or a nursery plant.

You Can Sow Salad Seeds In January

Ordinarily I’m not a big salad guy but when it gets to the darkest days of winter and my diet becomes seemingly chard-based, I take a different view. While it’s a little too early to sow some perennial leafy greens (it would encourage bolting), some hardy salads can be grown undercover in January.

Some lettuce varieties like Winter Gem can be sown all year round while Winter Density can be sown until the end of January and, completely opposite to chard, sowing summer lettuce too late encourages the plant to become bitter and go to seed. So getting an early start can be very beneficial.

Rocket (arugula) seeds can be sown in January but will germinate a lot better in warmer temperatures, so this is one to start on your windowsill or in a greenhouse and to potentially grow inside right the way to harvest. In February or March, you can start growing the plants you’ll place outside.

You can also sow spinach from seed and although they are quite a hardy plant, do give your young plants time to adapt to the cold weather and become established before being exposed to any deep frosts.

You Can Start Broad Beans (Fava Beans)

Broad beans are great to sow in January because they enjoy the cooler weather and are hardy enough to be planted out early.

They’ll germinate at temperatures not far above freezing and, in warmer locations and in soils that aren’t waterlogged, you could even sow directly in the ground. Elsewhere, including in my clay garden that remains shaded all winter, I’ll be sowing broad beans into pots in a plastic greenhouse to give them daytime warmth and better drainage.

Broad beans of the Aquadulche type will take two or three weeks to germinate and can be grown in containers right the way through until late March or April when they can be planted in the ground without need for protection.

Harden-off your plants first and be prepared to push this date back if you live in a colder area or the weather is unseasonably cold. Broad beans will also benefit from some support and you’ll often see gardeners building a twine grid attached to bamboo poles to carry the weight of the plants.

Try Sowing Leek Seeds In January

Much like onions, leeks require a long season to reach maturity. So much so that it’s common to grow leeks through the summer and not harvest until the colder winter months – some varieties take the entire year to mature. Sowing therefore typically takes place in March or April.

However, you can also sow leek seeds towards the end of January to get an earlier harvest. It’s more hands-on but it’s worth the effort as they are great for interplanting to repel pests like aphids and having a more substantial young leek in May will help protect other plants.

Varieties like Musselburgh are relatively hardy and the aptly named Sprintan are very early maturing while, conversely, a variety like Krypton might not mature until December!

You Can Sow Carrots In Containers Too

While the carrot season usually kicks off in March for direct sowing, if you’re into growing carrots in containers (or in a greenhouse or under cloches) then you can start much earlier.

Container-grown carrots can be started indoors to help them germinate faster by part-filling a container with fresh vegetable compost and adding a layer of seed compost or coir at the top. Place the seeds in shallow trenches, lightly sprinkle with water and cover with cling-film to retain moisture.

When the seeds germinate, move the carrots to a greenhouse or a bright windowsill in a cooler part of the house. Harden them off as you approach the last frost and then place the container in the final growing position. Then you can harvest by gently pulling out the carrots in a few months time.

I like to grow short Chatenay carrots in containers, as demonstrated in the video below, because harvesting is effortless, the soil never waterlogs, and (ironically) carrot fly can’t jump high enough to damage the crops. But you can grow any variety if you have a deep enough container or a grow bag.

And if you’re feeling very adventurous…

The seeds above are following the recommended sowing windows but there’s no reason you can’t go off-piste and have great results. If your ground hasn’t frozen yet, there’s still potentially time to get some garlic in and while tomatoes are usually sown in February or March, I’ve also sown them in December and January and enjoyed some great harvests.

Of course, if you do go down this route and sow seeds extra early indoors, you’ll need to consider providing artificial light to stop them from growing leggy and weak. Grow lights are the go-to solution and even the cheapest grow lights can be bright enough to grow tomatoes from seed if you can place the plants close enough to the light as I showed in the experiment below.

Let me know what you plan on growing this year in the comments below and, as always, happy gardening!

Are Cheap Grow Lights Bright Enough For Tomato Seedlings?