Around here in zone 7 (Tennessee) it’s still a little early to start getting very active in the garden but that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t be working on some things in the garden. Here is a to-do list for January to help get you started on a great year in the garden!
(Some of the links below are to affiliate sites where GTHG makes a small portion of each sale at no additional cost to you.)
January Gardening To-Do List
Plan Your Garden
The first step in a successful garden is to come up with a good plan. What plants do you want to grow, what seeds do you want to try, what new garden beds to make? New garden structures? It can be helpful to go back and look at what the previous year’s garden was like and what you found success with as well as what failed.
Here are some general ideas to include in a yearly garden plan:
- Plants to Plant/Order
- Structures to buy or build
- Equipment you need
- Supplies for seed starting, soil mixes, composting, plant propagation
- New Garden Beds or enlarging old ones
- When to plant various plants or crops
- Pest spray schedule
- garden layouts
Seed Orders

January is usually when all the seed catalogs arrive with full color pictures of amazing flowers, fruits, and vegetables. Plan out any additions for the year as well as reorders for seeds you enjoyed in the past. I like to make a mega seed list with everything I would want for the year then prune the list down to what I could actually manage. It’s still usually too much but you aren’t really a gardener if you don’t over plant/plan!
Seed Starting

I’ve found that some seeds like peppers and eggplant need a little more time than others to get growing. I like to start these seeds toward the middle to end of January. For tomato seeds I’ll usually hold off on seed starting until February. Indoor seed starting can be a lot of fun and it doesn’t have to be complicated. One of my favorite seed starting methods is to use plastic cups as mini-greenhouses.
Heat mats and grow lights are very helpful but not always necessary if you have a sunny spot in the house. For grow lights I will just use old shop lights with fluorescent bulbs. They seem to do a pretty good job without upgrading to the more expensive plant lights.
Pruning Shrubs and Trees
January is a good time to do a little pruning on trees and shrubs. When pruning pay attention to the type of hydrangea you have so you don’t accidentally remove the flowering branches for this year. Some of your trimmings in January can also make great hardwood cuttings to propagate more plants.
When pruning pay attention to the direction the last bud is facing. That will end up being the new direction for the branch. You can control how the shrub grows by selecting buds that are pointing in the direction you want them to be.
Garden Clean Up
If you are like me you leave the dead stems of last years plants up for the birds and bugs. In January it’s time to gradually begin cleaning these beds up so that you can start prepping the beds for this year. Compost what you can but be careful about putting seeds in the compost bin. Fortunately the birds will have cleaned out a lot of the seeds for you! Also be on the lookout for invasive grasses like Bermuda or crabgrass. Try to weed that out while you can easily see it.
Start New Garden Beds
This year we will be starting over from scratch with brand new garden beds. January in Tennessee is often very mild and good for working outdoors so I’ll try and take advantage of good weather and build new garden beds for this year’s vegetable and ornamental gardens. Since filling up raised beds can be challenge, preparing the beds early allows for time to fill them with Hugelkultur methods, compost, leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, lasagna gardening, or however you plan to fill them! (How to Fill a Raised Bed for Less than $15 – YouTube)
Hopefully this short garden to-do list for January will get your gardening year started off on the right foot!

More from Growing The Home Garden
The Best Way to Keep Green Onions Fresh
Green onions are a delicious topping to many soups and salads but they will go bad fast when stored in the refrigerator crisper drawer. However there is a way to keep green onions fresh for several weeks or more, and it’s so simple! To keep…
Tall Ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) Blooming in the Fall
Tall ironweed (Vernonia gigantea) is one of the few non-yellow flowering wildflowers blooming right now here in Tennessee. This extremely tall and purple member of the aster family can be seen throughout roadsides and fields in much of the country during the late summer or…
Guest Post From My Son
Hi there! I’m taking over dad’s blog today and giving you a bit of a tour of the garden. Or at least of the things I like about the garden! I’m not quite sure what he’s trying to do out there. He digs a lot,…
Catching Up!
I thought I would put together a catch up post for anyone who might have missed the past Garden Blogger Assignments. You are welcome to write about any of the past assignments over the last several weeks. I won’t be putting together a new assignment…
Garden Update From The Weekend
This weekend was a busy one in the garden! The weather was sunny, although with a fair amount of wind on Saturday but Sunday afternoon was very pleasant. This time of year is always exciting. Gardening activities are resuming in earnest and a lot can…
Tips for an Eco-Friendly Lawn
Frost on the lawn This weekend brought forth a significant event, the first mowing of 2012. It’s a momentous event that means the active growing season is moving ever closer! I know many of you probably don’t enjoy mowing the lawn like I do. It’s…
Discover more from Growing The Home Garden
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.