February Gardening Chores For The Pacific Northwest

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s February. You know what that means? It’s time to get going. I can feel it, and I’ll bet you can too – that little twitch in your hand that says, “alright, baby, let’s start some tomatoes!”

February typically marks the beginning of the big seed starting effort around here. Not just this year’s crop of tomatoes, but nearly all of the first round of brassicas can be started this month.

So, let’s get going. Spring is on its way.

Printable At-A-Glance Grow-Guide!

If you like your Gardening To Lists simple and direct, you’re in luck! Just click the image below to download the February At-A-Glance Grow Guide as a printable PDF.

Or, continue reading for the full details on everything you should be doing in your garden this month.

Plan and Purchase

No pressure, but by now you should have a pretty good idea what you will be growing and where you will be growing it.

Seeds

If you’re still finalizing your seed order, don’t delay. Good seed houses do run out of varieties. I’m a fan of High Mowing Organic Seeds. (High Mowing’s been – but isn’t currently – a seasonal sponsor of this site.) Johnny’s Select Seeds gets high marks from me as well.

Feeling overwhelmed? Here’s a few resources for planning your garden and your seed order this year:

• How To Pick Your Vegetable Seeds Without Going Crazy
• How To Make Succession Planting and Year-Round Gardening Really Work
• Seed Selection Made Very, Very Simple

Order your seed potatoes ASAP for best selection. Popular and rare varieties tend to sell out quickly. If you’re a true potato junkie, Irish Eyes has the widest selection around, all certified organic.

Perennials

If you didn’t do it last month, now’s the time to order perennials, like fruit trees, shrubs, rhubarb and asparagus. These should be planted as soon as they arrive, while still dormant.

This month you’ll start to see bare-root fruit trees, bushes and canes at nurseries, but the best selection will be mail order. I have ordered from Raintree Nursery many times (their catalog is total garden porn) and have always been happy with the plant quality and customer service. Readers have also recommended Cloud Mountain Farm as a good supplier of fruit trees.

• Rhubarb Crowns
• Asparagus Crowns
• Bare Root Fruit Trees
• Bare Root Fruit Bushes
• Bare Root Cane Fruit & Vines
• Hop Rhizomes

Gear

All this seed starting info assumes you have what it takes to grow great seeds into great little seedlings. And, sad to say, in the Pacific Northwest that’s not just a South facing window.

Here is my opinionated take on which seed starting supplies are worth your hard-earned cash and which aren’t.

I’ve get a ton of questions this time of year about grow lights! I upgraded to the T5 grow light pictured below and it’s been a dream for me. This is the grow light I have – highly recommended.

Prepare and Prune

This is a great time to start thinking about warming your soil where you’ll be planting heat lovers like tomatoes and peppers.

If you aren’t opposed to using plastic in the garden, pin black plastic down over your beds for extra heat and weed suppression. Clear plastic actually warms soil even better, but allows weeds to germinate like crazy. If you plan to leave plastic on your beds the whole season and just plant through it, make sure you have a soaker hose or something to irrigate under the plastic.

You can also erect your low tunnels and cloches at this time of year, to help winter-water-logged soil dry out and warm. By the time your transplants are ready, the soil will be too.

There’s still time to handle dormant season pruning and spray fruit trees with dormant oil to control mites, scale and overwintering buggies. See January Gardening Chores For The Pacific Northwest for a recipe for my DIY All Natural Dormant Oil Spray For Fruit Trees.

Start Indoors

Whoa boy, here we go.

Perennials

• Asparagus: if you want to try growing asparagus from seed, you have to start now – the seeds can take almost a month to germinate. Personally, I’d buy 1 year old crowns from a good nursery or mail order seed company.
• Artichokes: I grow Green Globe and Violetta.
• Strawberries: I wouldn’t bother starting common garden strawberries from seed, but some of the rare alpine types might be worth a go from seed.

Brassicas

• Broccoli: early varieties should be started under lights this month for planting out under a cloche at the beginning of April. All around, I really like Belstar as a spring broccoli. It’s a solid performer in cool weather. Some seed companies do broccoli blends, which are useful to home gardeners who don’t want to worry about succession planting. Territorial offers a good one.
• Brussels Sprouts: early varieties should be started under lights mid-month for planting out under a cloche at the beginning of April. I prefer Brussels Sprouts as a cool season crop, and will start them in June to mature in mid-September for harvest through fall and winter.
• Cabbage: Be very careful about variety selection here. You want an early cabbage with a maturity date of around 60-80 days. The really long maturing cabbages are better suited for fall. Farao has been a standout variety in my garden. Start under lights mid-month for planting out under a cloche end of March/ beginning of April.
• Cauliflower: A bit more finicky than other brassicas, give special attention to your cauli seedlings with consistent moisture and lighting and regular organic feeding or slow release fertilizer in the grow medium. Early varieties should be started under lights late this month for planting out under a cloche at the beginning of April. I like Snowball, and Romanesco did very well for me last year too.
• Kohlrabi: I’ve done ok with Lech as a spring kohlrabi. I still find this this crop easier to grow for fall (use a large hardy kohlrabi like Superschmelz for that) but my husband adores kohlrabi so I try to grow more of it.
• Kale and Collards: If you want early cooking greens you can start them now. If your space under lights is limited, wait and sow them out directly under a cloche next month. Both these crops germinate and grow well, even in cool soils. I grow collards in the fall (champion is a fine vates-type) but lacinato kale is a year-round crop for me.

Nightshades

• Tomatoes: If you don’t mind fussing with your tomatoes and if you have good strong grow lights and if you are planning on season extension, you can start your tomatoes in February with plans to up-pot to gallons if necessary and transplant to a pre-warmed, tunnel-cloched bed in late April, depending on weather. If you just don’t want to put that much work into it, wait a month. My favorite tomato is Striped Roman. If you aren’t confident about tomatoes, grow the incredibly flavored cherry-type called Sungold.
• Hot and Sweet Peppers: I start these at the same time as tomatoes, knowing they will need more babying than ‘maters and will take longer to grow big. That extra grow-time on the bench is fine, since peppers can’t go out to the garden until June some years. I consistently have the best luck with smaller, hot peppers than thick walled bell types, but King of the North does alright in our climate.
• Eggplant: How many eggplants are you really gonna grow? Give these another month or two before you start them because they are quite tender. Or just buy quality starts in early June. The Asian and mini-type eggplants are better for the Pacific Northwest.
• Potato: These you don’t really “start” but you can chit your seed potatoes to get a jump start on the season.

Leafy Greens and Herbs

• Chard: Start indoors now or wait a month and sow out directly. I grow rainbow chard.
• Salad Greens: Aim for a salad green sowing every month. New month? New sowing of lettuce, etc. That’ll give you edible salad greens in some stage of growth through October. It’s still quite early, so stick to the cool-weather cultivars like Winter Density.
• Spinach: I don’t think spinach is a great crop to start indoors. You go right ahead if you want, but I recommend broadcast sowing this crop outdoors for better results.
• Herbs: now is the time to sow seed for parsley, lemon verbena, chives, fennel, borage, chamomile, chervil and johnny-jump-ups (yes, they’re edible!)

Other Stuff

• Onions and Summer Leeks: You might have started these these guys last month, right? If not, you’ll want to jump on it early this month, or else place your order for onion plants. You’ll want long-day onion varieties if you’re in the Northwest. No short-days.
• Peas: For the earliest possible harvest, start these inside in a length of gutter. Transplant them out to a cloched bed when they are a few inches tall and plan for early peas.

Sow & Plant Outside

Seeds

• Peas: George Washington’s birthday (2/21) is the traditional time to sow peas. If the soil has warmed up and isn’t waterlogged, and if you didn’t sow peas indoors, the end of February is a good time to get them in the ground. If the soil still seems really cold and wet where you are, wait a few more weeks. Pretty much all peas grow well in the Northwest. I focus on Sugar Snap types.
• Favas: Direct sow anytime. When I grow favas, I grow the huge-seeded Broad Windsor.
• Garlic: You don’t have to do this because you got your garlic in last fall so it’s already showing 6 or 7 inches of shoot, right? Right? Oh, well, not to worry! Just stick some in now. Your garlic heads will be smaller but you’ll still have homegrown garlic.
• Salad Greens, Spinach, Asian Greens & European Greens: sow out the hardiest greens under cloche for the earliest possible direct seeded new crop greens.
• Radishes: the little globe ones. Try a pretty mix like Valentine’s Day.
• Onion Sets: for early green onions, you can plant sets now and use them before they bulb.

Perennials

With these perennials, pretty much if you can buy it right now, and the ground can be worked without turning to mud, you can plant.

• Bare root fruit trees: these should be put into previously prepared ground while still dormant.
• Bare root fruit bushes: These are your currants, gooseberries, blueberries, etc. Just like the trees, get these in the ground while still dormant.
• Cane fruits: Blackberries, raspberries, etc. available bare root now.
• Rhubarb crowns: These can be had by dividing established plants, ordered online, or purchased at a good nursery.
• Horseradish roots: these can be invasive! It’s a good idea to plant them in a very large container sunk into the ground to control their roaming. Of course, I didn’t listen to myself, I just stuck them in the ground last spring and now the roots are as big as my wrist and I’m kinda screwed. Oh well.
• Asparagus crowns: Easier than seed, these look like shriveled up sad, brown baby octopi when you first pull them out of the bag. They’ll settle in, though, and in a few years they will be monster plants with roots 8 feet deep. Asparagus is cool like that.

Harvest

Vegetables I’ve harvested in February include:

• Brussels Sprouts
• Overwintering Cabbage
• Carrots & Parsnips
• Kale and Collards
• Overwintering Cauliflower
• Sprouting Broccoli
• Winter Kohlrabi
• Chard
• Leeks
• Turnips & Rutabagas
• Protected Salad Greens, Asian Greens and Euro Greens
• Jerusalem Artichokes
• Stored Winter Squash
• Stored Potatoes
• Celeriac

What are you doing in your garden this month?

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