Plant These Vegetables in February Under a Cold Frame or Cloche to Enjoy Some of the Earliest Homegrown Harvests This Season

Starting vegetables in a cold frame or under a cloche is a proven way to enjoy earlier homegrown harvests. There are great candidates for this, including peas, beans, lettuce, carrots, spinach, and more. So, as a gardener who has grown many crops under cover, here are my picks of seven ideal vegetables to plant in February for delicious spring harvests.

The crops here are all easy to grow, reliable, and quick to mature. It means you can enjoy spring harvests without huge effort. I always advocate for getting ahead and enjoying earlier harvests, which is why planting in February, when the opportunity arises, checks all the right boxes for me.

This is where cold frames and cloches come to the fore. They offer an ideal way to warm the soil in late winter, which opens opportunities to sow seeds outdoors earlier. They provide an ideal protected environment for early crops that thrive in cooler temperatures, and free up space by giving an alternative place to start plants rather than doing it all in a greenhouse.

1. Lettuce

Lettuce is available in a variety of shapes, sizes, colors, and tastes. For the earliest lettuce harvests, it is best to sow butterhead or loose-leaf types of lettuce in late winter under cold frames (such as this wooden portable cold frame from Wayfair) or cloches.

To grow lettuce in this early way, prepare the soil before sowing by weeding thoroughly and placing the cold frame or cloche in place two weeks before to warm the soil ready for the seeds. Thinly sow the seeds around a half-inch deep into drills or individual holes and keep the soil moist.

You should thin the seedlings in early or mid-spring to give the plants sufficient space to develop, and remove the cloche or lift the cold frame lid on warm days to provide air circulation. As the weather warms, you can remove the cover, though you may need to take precautions against slugs and snails.

Harvest the cut-and-come-again lettuce by removing the outer leaves first and allowing the inner ones to continue to develop.

'Salad bowl' is a perfect loose-leaf lettuce variety to plant in February, and you can get packs of 'Salad Bowl' lettuce seeds at Burpee.

2. Arugula

This spicy salad leaf grows quickly and thrives in cooler conditions. If you want a reliable vitamin-rich crop that adds peppery notes to winter and spring salads, then arugula is a top contender. Going from sowing to picking in little over four weeks, you can enjoy fresh harvests as early as March.

Growing arugula under the protection of a cold frame or a cloche (or something like this portable mini greenhouse from Amazon as a cloche alternative) lessens the risk of slugs and snails nibbling on seedlings as they develop. Plus, as arugula doesn’t respond well to being transplanted, directly sowing seeds outdoors guarantees the best results. So sow the seeds into shallow drills and cover lightly.

Keep the plant moist and remove the cover on warm days to allow air to circulate and keep the leaves healthy. Harvest arugula as a cut-and-come-again vegetable once the leaves are large enough to use. Simply snip off the largest, outer leaves with clean scissors or pruning snips.

You can get packs of arugula seeds at Botanical Interests that can produce tender leaves to pick in 20-28 days.

3. Carrots

Homegrown carrots simply taste much sweeter than store-bought ones. If, like me, you use a lot of carrots throughout the year, then don’t just grow them in summer; start early and enjoy a longer season.

The earliest crop of carrots can be enjoyed by sowing them in February under a cloche or in a cold frame. Warm the soil for a few weeks before sowing the seeds, and then remove any stones to ensure straight roots and rake the ground level.

The best types of carrots for early sowings are fast-maturing varieties, like 'Nantes' (you can get Nantes carrot seeds at Burpee) or 'Amsterdam', or circular carrots, such as 'Paris Market' (you can get Paris Market carrot seeds at Amazon). For any of these, sow the seeds in rows four inches apart, and leave an inch between each seed.

You can add compost to the soil before sowing, but not manure or any high-nitrogen fertilizer. This will encourage lots of green growth, rather than the roots, which is what you need when growing carrots.

If you do want to fertilize carrots, use a low-nitrogen, higher-phosphorus and potassium fertilizer (such as this 5-10-10 vegetable fertilizer at Amazon) or bone meal, applied just before sowing or as the seeds germinate.

4. Radish

A super-early harvest of radishes can be the reward for being bold and sowing early. The first sowings of radishes can be made in late winter under the protection of a cloche or cold frame, and this can be the first of many successive plantings of radishes for a long, productive season.

Plant radish seeds directly into the soil, spacing them about an inch apart and half an inch deep. You may need to thin seedlings as they develop to the right spacing for the best roots.

Radishes are among the fastest-growing vegetables; they germinate in under a week and can go from sowing to harvesting quickly. While early sowings do take a bit longer than those done later in the season, you should still expect to be harvesting in around six weeks from a February sowing.

You can get 'French Breakfast' radish seeds at True Leaf Market, which are renowned for their speedy growth and tender roots

5. Fava beans

You can start growing fava beans in a cold frame in February. As fava beans germinate at lower temperatures than many other crops, you can plant them into deep pots in a cold frame to start them off, and then plant them outside after around six weeks.

I have sown indoors in February and found it a more reliable way to plant fava beans than doing it in the fall. You’ll certainly get earlier pickings than waiting till the ground is suitable for spring planting. The harvest time for fava beans can potentially be advanced by four to six weeks through the use of covers.

The cold frame route is a good option as seeds can rot outdoors in cold, damp soil, and also gives the beans protection from mice, which are renowned for nibbling on them as they search for food in winter.

'Aquadulce' is the variety I have always sown in late winter. It is very reliable, heavy-cropping, and can survive cold. You can get packs of 'Aquadulce' fava bean seeds at Amazon.

6. Peas

Peas are a very versatile crop to grow, and the earliest sowings can be made in February. This gets them off to an early start and provides you with harvests by May or early June.

Just as with fava beans, the seeds can rot in cold, wet soil, and mice are fans, so the protection offered by cold frames and garden cloches can be crucial to successful germination and raising healthy seedlings.

Sow early pea varieties two inches deep into pots, recycled toilet rolls, or deep modules. To avoid root disturbance when transplanting seedlings, biodegradable pots like these at Amazon are great for peas, as you plant the pot with the seedling.

Another common way gardeners grow peas is to sow them along a length of guttering filled with seed compost, then slide the seedlings and soil from the tube into a trench.

A great compact variety of shelling pea to grow is 'Little Marvel', and you can get seeds at Botanical Interests for plants that grow just 18-24 inches tall.

7. Salad Onions

Spring onions, green onions, and scallions are thrown together under the tag ‘salad onions’ here, as they are immature onions harvested at different stages, harvested with or without a small bulb forming. No matter what you call them, these onions will reliably germinate under a cold frame or cloche.

The seeds want to be sown in narrow drills 4-12 inches apart, and the seeds need to be spaced two inches apart for good-sized onions to use for salads, seasoning, or in cooking. If you sowed thickly, thin these seedlings to a good spacing as they develop.

Keep the soil moist, but not waterlogged, as this risks the spring onions rotting. If you sow in February, you can start harvesting in April. Once the stems reach 8-12 inches apart, start harvesting them as required.

'White Lisbon' is a variety of bunching onion that has always worked for me. You can get packs of 'White Lisbon' bunching onion seeds at Burpee to sow.

February can be a busy time as you try to get the garden ready for the new season. To help you get organized, this guide to February gardening jobs features lots of useful tasks to do this month. Plus, if you want to do a bit more sowing, see this guide to flowers to sow in February so your beds and containers will be full of blooms come summer.

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