What to Plant in February Canada

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What to plant in February in Canada depends entirely on your zone — this page answers it for every band. February is when Prairie and Central gardeners start the slowest crops indoors — onions, leeks and celery — and coastal gardeners begin peppers. Nothing goes outdoors anywhere in Canada this month.

SoilCommander Editorial Team

Canada vegetable growing guides · Checked against Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada plant hardiness data

Every Canadian growing guide is written and maintained by our editorial team for real Canadian growing conditions, and checked against Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada hardiness and frost-date data and provincial agriculture guidance before publication.

10-12 wks

Before last frost: onions and leeks

8-10 wks

Before last frost: peppers

Zone 3

Prairie tomato sowing starts late Feb

February planting by region

Band	Sow outdoors	Start indoors	Plant out	Harvest now
Long season Zones 7-9	Nothing outdoors.	Onions, leeks, celery; peppers late month.	Nothing.	Overwintered greens, leeks, kale.
Medium season Zones 4-6	Nothing.	Onions, leeks, celery.	Nothing.	Stored crops.
Short season Zones 2-3	Nothing.	Onions and leeks; tomatoes very late month in zone 3.	Nothing.	Stored crops.

February garden jobs

Start onions, leeks and celery — the crops that genuinely need this long indoors.
Set up grow lights; Canadian February daylight is far too short for windowsills.
Chit early potatoes in a cool, bright place.
Check stored vegetables and remove anything spoiling.
Finalise the seed order if you have not already.

Common February mistakes

Starting tomatoes in February outside zone 3 — they will be enormous and stressed by the time it is safe to plant out in late May.
Relying on a windowsill, which produces stretched, weak seedlings at this latitude.
Sowing too thickly and then not thinning.
Overwatering seedlings in cool rooms, which causes damping-off.

Turn February's jobs into a written plan. The Canada Vegetable Garden Planner (printable PDF) has frost-date planning pages, bed layouts, crop rotation, a sowing log and a harvest tracker — 70 printable pages.

More Canada planting guides

Frequently Asked Questions

What can I start indoors in February in Canada?

Onions, leeks and celery everywhere, plus peppers on the coast late in the month. Prairie gardeners in zone 3 can start tomatoes at the very end of February because their last frost is late May.

Do I need grow lights in Canada?

Yes. February and March daylight is short and weak across the whole country, and seedlings grown without supplementary light stretch badly.

When do I start tomatoes in Canada?

Six to eight weeks before your last frost — late February to early March on the Prairies, mid-March in Toronto and Montreal, and March on the coast.

Last updated 25 August 2026

Relevant next steps

Turn This Month's Jobs Into A Plan

Month-by-month advice works best when it becomes a written sowing list, bed plan, and follow-up task list.

Printable garden plannerRecord this month's sowing dates, crop rotation, and bed tasks. Seed starting setupChoose trays, labels, compost, and indoor sowing tools before you start. Full planting calendarCompare this month with the rest of the UK growing year.

Plan the next step

Use the printable SoilCommander planner for your region to turn this guide into sowing dates, bed layouts and weekly garden tasks.

Get Planner

What to Plant in February Canada