What’s Fresh in Davidson County, NC — January Harvest & Spring Garden Prep
Winter’s chill doesn’t mean the soil’s asleep here in Davidson County. Right now local growers and gardens are quietly producing cool-season goodies that thrive in chillier weather. These are the crops that laugh in the face of frost and give us fresh crunch and greens even while other plants nap.
Cool-season crops in the ground now include hearty lettuce, spinach, kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli, and arugula — all the vegetables that can handle temperatures that make warm-season plants shiver. Radishes, turnips, mustard greens, and other quick-maturing roots or greens are also showing up at farms and in backyard plots. These crops are hardy, often getting planted in late fall or early winter and continuing through the first warmth of spring. Broccoli and kale in particular usually grace our tables long before summer heat sets in.
Vegetable lovers may also see winter lettuce and spinach sprouting in protected beds, and some farmers manage to extend harvests with row covers or cold frames so you can get fresh greens nearly year-round.
Gardeners, This Is Your Quiet Planning Season
January is prime time for seed catalogs, planning, and indoor seed-starting. Think of this as quiet strategy before the spring gardening symphony begins. January and February are when gardeners often start seeds indoors — especially the kinds that take a while to grow or that will go out early in spring once the soil is workable. Cool-season seeds you might start under lights or in an unheated cold frame now include onions, broccoli, cabbage, collards, kale, and even peas.
What to Plant & When
For a typical Piedmont garden rhythm, here’s how the early year shapes up:
Plants you can prepare or start now
Start seeds indoors now for transplants later: onions, brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards), and peas. These will be ready to go outside by late February to early March.
Late winter/early spring (February–March) outdoors
Once your soil can be worked and is not soggy or frozen, cool-season crops like carrots, radishes, lettuce, spinach, mustard, turnips, and more peas can be sown directly in the garden. Transplants of onions and the brassica family can also go out in this window.
Warm-season crops wait their turn
Tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, beans, and other heat-loving veggies need warmer soil and air — typically after the average last frost here (usually in mid-April). For now you can get their seeds ready indoors so they’ll be big, robust transplants when the calendar flips to spring.
Garden Prep Tips That Actually Work
Now is the time to prep beds: clean out old debris, work in compost, test soil pH if you haven’t in a couple years, and sketch a garden plan by sunlight hours (south-facing gets the most action early). If you’ve saved seeds from last year’s garden, sort them, label them, and look up their days-to-maturity so you can map out succession planting — that clever trick of sowing every few weeks to keep veggies coming longer.
Starting seeds indoors under lights gives you a head start on spring, and plants started this way often beat weeds and pests to the punch. When your seedlings are sturdy and the risk of frost is low, ‘hardening off’ — a fancy way of slowly introducing them to the outdoors — will make those young plants ready to thrive outside.
