Check These Garden Tasks Off Your January To-Do List

We're on a mission to help you grow more this year than ever before. That means giving you all our tips and tricks to make the most of every single day in the garden this calendar year, starting right now!

Two keys to your gardening success this new year will be your garden setup and the timing of your planting. If you can get these two things right, you're 90 percent of the way to making your garden dreams come true this year.

Here are your top to-do list items so that you can be ready to grow the second your soil is workable and nail the setup and timing in your garden this year.

Order Seed Starting Supplies

Make sure you've got all your seed starting supplies ready to go as soon as you arrive at your first indoor planting date (for those of you in warmer climates, that could be this month!).

You can buy seed starting kits, or you can grab a couple simple things and repurpose items around your home. Here's what you'll need if you plan to start seeds indoors this year:

• seed starting trays
• light source
• water source
• heating mat (optional)
• organic seed starting mix
• seeds
• small fan or good ventilation

Don’t feel like you have to go all out and start trays and trays of plants or it's not worth it. Just one tray of large plants could help you fill your garden beds in the months to come.

Learn more about recommended seed starting supplies. You can start with just one tray in January if you’ve never tried seed starting before, or you can go big—it’s totally up to you!

Make Your 2025 Planting List

Around the holiday season each year, you too get to make a list and check it twice. But this list isn't about who's been naughty or nice—it's the plants you'll be planting and growing this year.

Here are some ideas to help you make your planting list for this year. (If you're not sure what I mean by the different growing seasons, make sure to check out our post on planning your 2025 garden.)

Cool Season Plants

There's broccoli, cauliflower, romanesco, kale, Swiss chard, and cabbage. These are all larger plants that benefit from a 4-week head start indoors before they're planted outside. If you're not up for starting these indoors, buy them as plants from your local nursery as soon as your soil is workable. Sugar snap peas can be started indoors or planted outdoors even before your last frost date. Then there's spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, and radishes, all of which can be direct sown in the garden.

Warm & Hot Season Plants

Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and cucumbers can be started indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost date so that they're ready to go outside as soon as it's warm enough. There are tons of plants you can direct sow in the garden once the soil is nice and warm, including arugula, zinnias, marigolds, squash, zucchini, melons, beans, and crowder peas.

Once you have your list, you have to decide whether you'll be starting these plants from seed indoors, direct sowing them, or buying well-grown plant starts from your local nursery or farmers' market. Unless your garden is over 250 square feet or so, you probably won't need an entire package of any of these seeds (except maybe lettuce). So you have a choice to make before you buy seeds: Do you want to grow a lot of a couple plants? Or do you want to grow a couple of a lot of different plants? That's always my dilemma. This year, I'm hoping for a happy balance of a lot of plants I love the most.

But here's the thing: You can't really go wrong! No matter what you chose, something will be incredible, and something else will be a challenge. And you'll learn so much along the way (and get to eat the results).

Buy Seeds for Your Upcoming Growing Seasons

Even if spring feels so far away, now is the best time to order your seeds for the year, especially seeds you can grow as soon as the weather allows. (Those are the plants that are on your cool season plant list that you decided you'd grow from seed). Seeds for popular varieties often sell out by February or March. So here are my recommendations for which seeds to buy in January before the seed-buying rush.

Now is also a great time to order potatoes and onion sets. Most companies will send you your seed potatoes when it's time to plant in your area. That's one less thing to worry about later.

A couple things to keep in mind as you think about which seeds to buy: One, get together with a friend if you don't plan to grow high quantities of plants and split your order. Two, don't order seeds that need to be started indoors unless you've got the basic equipment to get them going.

And three, the quality of seeds you buy can really make or break your 2025 garden. Prioritize buying organic seeds from local sources or reputable seed companies online now. Some of my favorite online seed sources are Baker Creek, Botanical Interests, Johnny's Selected Seeds, High Mowing Seeds, Territorial Seed Company, Seed Savers Exchange, and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. We also have a new line of Gardenary seeds, and we're working on adding more to the collection this year.

Schedule Big Planting Days

Let's get planting days for the cool season, warm season, hot season (if applicable), and any second seasons on the calendar. These are the actual factual days you're going to dig in and plant in your garden.

Here's how to determine your days:

• Cool season planting day: 45 days before your anticipated last frost date
• Warm season planting day: last frost date
• Hot season planting day: first day when your average high temps will be above 90°F for 90 or more days.
• Warm season 2 planting day: first day when high temps average 65°F to 85°F for 90 or more days
• Cool season 2 planting day: 60 days before your first frost date

There are a couple of plants that can be planted outside these parameters. They include peas, potatoes, tomatoes, and garlic. Let's look at them.

Pea Planting Day

This will be when you plant some of my favorites: sugar snap peas, fava beans, and snow peas. Peas can withstand frost, so you can get them in the garden 60 days before your last frost date. When I lived in Chicago, that was right around St. Patrick's Day for me. That made it easy to remember since peas and all the other leafy greens I planted around the same time are green. If you're in warmer climate like Houston, your pea planting date might be right now.

Potato Planting Day

Now, let's get your potato planting day penciled in. Potatoes are warm season plants, but you can actually plant them 35 days before your last frost date since they'll be protected under the soil. That's April 10 in Chicago, and January 16 in Houston.

Tomato Planting Day

All right, let's do everyone's favorite: tomatoes. You'll plant tomatoes right around your last frost date, but I do like to wait a week just to be safe. In Chicago, that's May 15. In Houston, that's Valentine's Day. Easy to remember if you love tomatoes as much as I do.

Garlic Planting Day

Lastly, let's do garlic. You'll plant garlic about 30 days before your last frost date. In Chicago, that's September 29, and in Houston, that's November 10.

Doesn't it feel great to have some dates on the calendar?

Make a Plan to Keep Your Soil Healthy Year Round

Remember how I said setup is one of the top two factors in your garden success? Well, this step involves one of the most important parts of your garden setup: the soil that fills your raised garden beds.

If you want the healthiest garden soil possible, let's go ahead and make a plan for amending your soil throughout the year. Hopefully you're starting with a well-draining, nutrient-rich soil. If not, grab a copy of my book Kitchen Garden Revival to learn more about my sandy loam soil blend called the 103.

You'll add 2 to 3 inches of fresh compost to the top of your garden before each new season's planting day (My favorite type of compost for the vegetable garden is mushroom compost).

Here's what that might look like over the course of the year:

• Add fresh compost about 50 days before your last frost date, right before you plant your cool season favs.
• Add more fresh compost about 5 days before your last frost date to prepare for your warm season plants.
• Add more compost halfway through your longest growing season. Basically, the plants that will spend the longest time in your garden will need a little nutrient refresh to keep them going.
• Lastly, add more compost about 70 days before your first frost date in the fall for your last round of plants.

I've personally found that having days when I'll add compost marked on my calendar keeps my soil healthy and well-balanced all year long. Of course, there will be times when you need to add other key nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. It's a good idea to have organic forms of these nutrients ready at the start of each season.

If you weren't happy with the productivity of your garden last year, your soil might be to blame. Do a soil test on your garden as soon as your soil is workable so that you can amend as needed before you plant.

Keep your soil in mind, add some organic fertilizers to your shopping cart, and your garden will be better than it's ever been.

Order Weather Protection to Extend Your Growing Seasons

Many of us live and garden in climates that feel limiting, climates where there's snow on the ground for months on end. The good news is there are actually a lot of plants that can grow even when there's a threat of frost. The great news is you can create your own garden thermostat. How?

Garden covers.

Covers basically fool your plants into the thinking the weather is more suited to their preferences than it really is. The plants you grow in your garden are dependent on temperature. Each seed you’ll plant this year will only grow if the temperatures are just right for their specific needs. Many of the plants you might be hoping to grow in the early part of the year will wait for the soil to warm to a certain temp before they'll start doing their magic. As gardeners, we can be patient and wait until the temps change on their own, or we can use garden covers as little garden thermostats.

Garden cover options to protect your plants from frost and snow include cold frames, frost cloth draped over some garden hoops or PVC pipe, and even just old sheets and towels in a pinch. Using covers in cold weather in the spring warms your soil and allows you to sow your seeds in the garden way earlier than most people think is possible. You can also keep your plants in the garden way longer in the fall. So you get to extend your entire growing season for the year by starting earlier and finishing later.

If you live somewhere with hot summers, you might also use this time of garden planning to order some shade cloth for when temps spike over 95°F.

Select and Order Trellises and Supports

Now it’s time to plan for support structures you’ll need for your garden. When I first started growing cucumbers and peas and tomatoes, I just planted the seeds and let them do their thing. Fast forward 30 days and I’d be jumping in the minivan and racing to Lowe’s to pick up tomato cages and wooden stakes, hoping to save my sprawling plants that had fallen overnight.

The plants that will need supports in your garden will be either large bush-like plants that tend to topple with weight or large vining plants that grow long.

Bush-like plants that typically need support include broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and kale in the cool season; and peppers, bush tomatoes, eggplants, squash, and zucchini in the warm/hot season. Use stakes or small trellises (under 5 feet tall) to hold these plants upright.

For large vining plants, I recommend having a nice strong trellis that's at least 6 feet tall. These trellises can support pole peas in the cool season and vining tomatoes and cucumbers in the warm season.

Growing UP in the garden is one of the most magical things, so make a plan for plant supports. Go ahead and order a few for yourself if you haven't already. Explore our Gardenary Shop trellises.

You're Ready to Start Growing in 2025

If you're in a warmer climate and can plant this month, make sure to clear debris from your garden before digging in.

This ends our January checklist, but this doesn’t have to be the end of me helping you in the garden. In fact, it’s just the beginning. We've got tons of resources to help you grow more this year than you ever have before. We've got upcoming workshops, new episodes on the Grow Your Self podcast, and tons of videos coming your way.

I'd love to be part of your 2025 garden, not just the planning, but every step of the way. Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary again!