January may feel like the depths of winter, but there’s still plenty a gardener can be doing if you know where to start. In this practical guide, award-winning garden writer Ade Sellars explains what you can sow now, when to do it, and how to give seeds the best possible start to the growing year ahead.
Can, When, What Should I Sow?
By
Ade Sellars – The Good Life Gardener
We gingerly step into a New Year, putting behind us recent festive memories, moments and celebrations. Decorations are taken down, boxed and once again placed into hibernation. Across our fair land, Christmas trees are evicted from their warm homes, all too aware the festive cheer has dried up. Where once they were the heart of the family, firs, spruces and pines are now abandoned across pavements and driveways. Forced to fend for themselves, these lost souls wonder what they did wrong to offend their adopted families, but worry more on how their journey will end.
January can paint a very grey picture, heads hang low, pockets are shy of coppers and payday seems a lifetime away. Mother Nature does nothing to help the cause as her cold moods keep the skies bruised and temperatures low. Whilst many make offerings of New Year resolutions to try and appease her, we gardeners tell ourselves, 2026 is the year to be bold, take risks and be fearless. Grow large, grow wild, and grow your own.
But it’s the depths of winter, surely this is not the moment to throw open the garden gate with wild abandonment and sink our green fingers into the soil? If so, can, when and what should we be sowing this month?
MICROGREENS
For many gardeners, growing space can be limited. Also, when there’s bills to be paid, children to entertain and jobs to be fulfilled, time is precious. So, if you want to grow something quick and easy, then sowing microgreens might be the answer. Mustard and watercress make a welcome addition to any meal. Simply sow into a seed tray, or pot, filled with damp Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds and place somewhere warm. Once they germinate, place your tray on a sunny kitchen windowsill and watch them grow. They’re also a fun activity for children to try. Why not encourage them to draw faces on empty eggshells. Then, fill the eggshells with compost and scattered seeds. Within days their eggshell characters will begin growing edible hair.
CHILLIES, PEPPERS & AUBERGINES
Chillies, peppers and aubergines need a long growing season in a warm environment, so consider sowing them now. Again, using Dalefoot Wool Compost for Seeds, fill either a small 9cm pot, seed tray or module cells. Gently tamp down the soil and sow your favourite seeds evenly across the surface. Cover them over lightly with compost, label and sit the sown container in a tray of shallow water. This allows the water to soak from the bottom up, which will leave the seeds undisturbed. Once thoroughly watered, remove from tray and place seeds somewhere warm to germinate, which should occur within twenty-one days. When shoots appear, remove from propagator, and keep them somewhere bright with a temperature of around 16-18°C. As it’s currently a low winter sun, grow lights are a great asset for the gardener, and you don’t need to be spending large sums of money on them. Failing that, try using kitchen foil or white carboard as this will help reflect the light.
Create three walls surrounding the pots, ensuring the seedlings have full access to the window or light source. As a DIY enthusiast, I use offcuts from insulation boards.
ONIONS
Although onions can be sown in sets in early spring, providing you have a heat supply in your polytunnel, or greenhouse, you can sow onions seeds now. With so many more varieties to choose from, you can really liven up your onion crop. For this, I use a plug tray, fill it with seed compost and sow no more than six seeds to a plug. I then finely cover over the seeds with compost and label. Either place them into a tray of water or, using a handheld water sprayer, give the soil a heavy misting of water. The tray is then placed somewhere warm, such as a warm greenhouse or kitchen windowsill to germinate.
Once you have your seedlings, then can grow on indoors with plenty of light. I tend to take mine back out to the greenhouse to grow on, ensuring the soil remains moist.
SEED POTATOES
If you haven’t done so yet, buy and order your first early potato tubers now. The sooner they arrive, the sooner you can starting chitting.
Chitting is speeding up the aging process of a tuber, and letting its eyes sprout. By the time you come to planting, ground temperatures still won’t be at their warmest, but those weeks of chitting will give your tubers a valuable head start.
Remember, stand the tubers apart (egg boxes make ideal holders), with their eyes facing upwards. Place somewhere warm, dry and with plenty of sunshine, such as a kitchen windowsill, porch or warm greenhouse. Try to keep sprouts down to three maybe four, so the energy isn’t too dispersed, thus producing weaker shoots. Six weeks on, and tubers should be ready for planting out.
BRASSICAS
I am a huge fan of brassicas, from swede to broccoli, I can’t get enough of these cruciferous beauties. At this time of year, my thoughts are with what to harvest in spring, and both cauliflower and Romanesco play a big part. I tend to use 9cm pots filled with Dalefoot Compost for Vegetables and Salad and sow anything from six to a dozen seeds. I don’t worry at this stage about spacing, as once they are seedlings with true leaves I prick out and pot on individually into pots to grow on. If you haven’t grown Romanesco before I urge you to give it a go. Not only does it have a nutty sweeter taste, often compared to its brassica cousins. But its green vibrant spire-like florets are a real eye-catcher on the veg plot.
SWEET PEAS
Some growers would have sown their seeds back in autumn, but for me, I’ve always done it in January. To help germination, leave seeds in water overnight, or, create a tiny nick in the seed so it can easily take in water. Using 7cm pots, fill with Dalefoot Wool Compost for Potting and sow three seeds to a pot at 2cm deep. Cover over with compost, and water. Remember to label your varieties, then place pots in a greenhouse or cold frame. Keep soil moist, and once plants reach 10-15cms tall, pinch out the tips, just above a set of leaves, as this will create a bushier plant resulting in more flowers.
ANNUALS
And whilst you’re in flower sowing mode, why not fill a few seed trays with compost, tamp down and thinly sow across the surface. Cover over lightly, label and water. Whether its lobelia, snapdragons or begonias, they will require a heated propagator or greenhouse to germinate successfully. Check regularly for germination and keep soil moist.
On a final note, if you are about to give your Christmas tree its marching orders, instead of binning them, try recycling your tree by shredding it into chippings. This then can be spread across beds and pots and used as a general mulch. As the chippings are slightly acidic, they are ideal for ericaceous plants, such as blueberries, heathers and camellias. Chippings can also be used as an inexpensive option to help create garden or allotment paths. Try using the branches as plant supports for peas and broad beans. Your tree doesn’t have to be just be for Christmas, it can be with you all year round spreading its cheer throughout your garden.
Whatever you get up to into in your green spaces this month, I hope 2026 will bring you blousy blooms, rich harvests and gardening memories to treasure.
BIOG
I’m Ade Sellars the ‘Good Life Gardener’, and I’m am award-winning garden writer, gardener designer, and filmmaker, with a passion for growing my own food in my kitchen garden. I’m also a garden presenter on both Must Have Ideas TV and the QVC Channel. I regularly stage host and deliver gardening talks around the country.
Website: www.adesellars.com
Instagram: adesellars
YouTube: @TheGoodLifeGardener
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ade-sellars-7429ba42/