What to do in the vegetable garden in December? The month's jobs guide

December in the vegetable garden is the month of protection and the last plantings: as long as the soil is neither frozen nor snowy, you can still plant — and harvest winter vegetables as needed. Here are the month's jobs, drawn from the traditional gardeners' calendars.

Planting: the month of bare roots

December remains a great planting month, on one condition only: the soil must be neither frozen nor snowy. The gardeners' calendars admit in December:

• Bare-root fruit trees and bushes — all species; the season runs until March.
• Soft fruit — blackcurrants, redcurrants, raspberries, frost permitting.
• Bare-root roses and ornamental shrubs.
• The last shallots — their planting window runs until January.

If your plants are heeled in and lasting frost is forecast, leave them: a well-made heel carries them unharmed until the thaw.

Sowing: under protection only

Outdoors, sowing season is over — the simple cold frame waits for January-February. But the calendars open from the first half of December sowing on a hotbed and under frame:

• early carrots on a hotbed, possibly paired with a row of radishes;
• lettuces on the same beds;
• leek seed on a hotbed — for February transplanting.

And indoors, nothing stops you preparing the season: a seed starting kit lets you raise seedlings ahead of time — steady temperature and enough light make all the difference, as our vegetable sowing calendar shows.

Harvests: December's pantry

The December vegetable garden still feeds you — harvests spread out as needed:

• Leaves: lamb's-lettuce and spinach leaf by leaf, leeks, Milan and Brussels cabbages (cabbages are picked as needed).
• Roots: carrots, parsnips, salsify, scorzonera, Jerusalem artichokes — the last two stay in the ground and are lifted as you go. Scorzonera can also be lifted and kept in the cellar.
• Endives: lift the last roots and store them in sand or dry soil — cellar forcing (~10 °C, dark) yields chicons in about three weeks, staggered all winter.
• Keeping fruit: last kiwis and medlars; inspect stored apples, pears, grapes and actinidia, discard marking fruit, and refresh the store's air — at least once a week.

Protection: the month's rule

The gardeners' calendar makes it the rule of December: cover with litter whatever stays in open ground as soon as hard frosts are forecast — lamb's-lettuce, carrots, spinach, chervil, lettuces under frame. Count about fifteen centimetres of straw; what you lift keeps cool in damp sand.

• Artichokes: in December they can be uncovered by day if covered at night; double the litter for hard frosts.
• Frames and mats: open on fine sunny days, close and double at night.
• Heeled cabbages: bring them under cover if not already done.

Soil, tools and review

December is also the month of deferred work:

• Rough digging of spring beds — let the frost work the soil over winter.
• Before any amendment, it is the right time to know your soil's pH.
• Garden notebook: late December, review the beds — what yielded, what froze, what to try again. It is January's best tool.

What can wait

Two jobs do not belong to December in the gardeners' calendars:

• General fruit-tree pruning — January-February work (in December, only pruning of late pip-fruit species is admitted, frost-free);
• Sowing in a simple cold frame — a January-February window.

To go further

• Gardening with the moon in December 2026 — the day-by-day windows
• What to do in the vegetable garden in November — the previous month