What to Plant in January: A European Garden Guide

In January, plant bare-root roses, fruit trees and bushes whenever the ground is neither frozen nor waterlogged, plus rhubarb crowns and garlic varieties bred for late-winter planting. Under cover, sow onions from seed, start sweet peas late in the month and keep autumn-sown salads cropping. Outdoors in a continental garden, almost nothing goes in.

That list is shorter than most January seed catalogues suggest. Treat the month as two jobs. One is the handful of things that genuinely go in now. The other is the much longer list that wants February or March instead. Telling them apart is the harder half, because the seedling that stretches into a thin pale stem in March usually got sown in January.

What to Plant in January, Zone by Zone

If you are not sure which of these describes your garden, our European climate zones guide explains how to find your zone and what it changes about timing.

What's Worth Planting in January

Chillies, peppers, aubergines and tomatoes belong in the same "not yet" column, which is covered in detail below. For crops that are standing in the ground right now and want harvesting rather than planting, our winter vegetables guide covers what should still be out there.

Chitting and Forcing: January's Real Work

The two jobs that actually belong to January are not sowings at all.

Chitting seed potatoes means standing the tubers somewhere light and cool so they produce short sturdy shoots before planting. The RHS potato guide starts chitting in late January in milder areas and up to early March in colder spots, in a bright, frost-free location, and the process takes four to six weeks. That timing is not arbitrary. First earlies go in around late March, so a late-January start lands the shoots at the right length. The RHS calls chitting useful rather than essential, mainly for early varieties, and that is worth knowing before you give up a windowsill to it. Unchitted potatoes still grow perfectly well, they just take a few weeks longer.

Forcing rhubarb is the other one. Cover an established crown with a forcing jar, a tall bucket or a dustbin in mid-winter so the stems grow in the dark, and they will be ready four to eight weeks later. Use a strong, healthy plant, and do not force the same one two years running.

Why January Sowings Go Leggy

This is the part the January seed lists skip. Across our work in gardening groups in five European markets, the recurring late-winter question is almost never what to sow. It is why the seedlings have gone thin and pale and are leaning toward the window: stretched tomatoes, stretched squash, pale basil, pricked-out seedlings growing crooked. One English-language thread about it drew forty comments.

The cause is not mysterious and the RHS states it plainly in its sweet pea guide: seedlings grow weak and leggy because of insufficient light and excess warmth. That combination is exactly what a January windowsill provides. A heated room easily reaches the 18 °C that most seeds need to germinate, and chilli seed wants about 21 °C, so the heat is never the problem in January. The light is. A seedling that germinates in warmth and then cannot find enough light puts its energy into a longer stem instead of a thicker one, and you cannot undo that later.

The practical answers are all about closing that gap:

• Sow when the sowing guide says, not in January. The RHS chilli guide sows indoors from late winter to mid-spring, and the RHS greenhouse crops feature is more specific still: peppers and chillies are slow growing, so sow them early February to early March. February gets you the same harvest with a much better plant.
• Drop the temperature once they are up. The RHS keeps chilli seedlings at 16 to 18 °C in bright light after germination, not at germination warmth. The remedy it gives for leggy seedlings is the same move: somewhere cooler and brighter.
• Use the brightest glass you have. For indoor sowing the RHS points to a greenhouse or a south or west facing windowsill. Our guide to starting seeds indoors covers the setup in detail.
• Treat a coldframe as an asset, not a fallback. It is where the RHS puts autumn-sown sweet peas for the winter, so they do not get leggy.

Common January Mistakes

• Sowing chillies, peppers and tomatoes in January. You will get germination and then eight weeks of stretching. February is not a compromise, it is the recommended window.
• Chitting potatoes in the dark. Bright and frost-free is the instruction; a dark shed gives you fragile white shoots.
• Buying ordinary garlic in January. Most varieties want their cold period from an autumn planting. Only the varieties sold for late-winter planting will work now.
• Planting bare-root stock into frozen or sodden ground. Heel it in somewhere sheltered and wait for a workable spell.
• Forcing the same rhubarb crown you forced last year. It needs a season to recover.

Plan Your January Garden With Plantory

Most of January is a planning month, and the planning is what decides whether February and March go well. With Plantory you can map where bare-root stock will go before the delivery arrives, and get a frost alert from the forecast for your own garden rather than a national average. In the Seasons view you can carry this year's plantings over as planned plantings for next season. That is the easiest way to see that the chillies want a February slot rather than a January one.

When February does arrive, our February planting guide picks up where this one stops.