February is peak-summer sowing in NZ's sub-tropical gardens, but it's also a month with a genuine quirk in the data: cucumber's harvest window closes here this month, even though the crop is only just getting started in cooler NZ zones. That's the kind of detail this zone's short, mild frost season (May–September) produces once you look past the sow-now checklist.

Quick Answer: What to Sow Now

Root crops, leafy greens and peas make up this month's list: beetroot, carrot, lettuce, pak choy, peas, radish, silverbeet and spinach. It's the same eight as most months in this zone — none of their timing is frost-driven, so the sowing list barely shifts through the year here.

Sowing Through Peak Summer Heat

Lettuce (sow September–March, harvest November–May) and pak choy (sow August–May, harvest September–June) are both prone to bolting in extended hot spells, and February is usually the hottest test of the year for both. Shade cloth and part-shade respectively are worth setting up before the heat forces the issue, not after.

Beetroot, carrot, radish, silverbeet, spinach and peas tolerate the heat better. Keep carrot beds evenly moist through germination, thin beetroot and radish as they come up, and succession-sow spinach and peas in small batches rather than one large planting that all matures — and bolts — at once.

Cucumber's Last Month Here

Cucumber's sourced harvest window in this zone runs November through February, which makes this the final month of the season — a genuine contrast with the temperate zone, where cucumber's harvest only opens in January and keeps going through April. Plan on this being your last real cucumber picking window rather than expecting the vines to carry on into autumn the way they might further south.

Where Sub-Tropical Is Weeks Ahead

Several tender crops sown here back in winter or early spring — thanks to a frost-risk window that closes in September rather than November — are well into their harvest by February, while their temperate-zone equivalents are only just getting going.

Climbing beans are the sharpest example: this zone's harvest window (December–March) means beans have already been cropping for two months, while the temperate zone's climbing bean harvest (February–May) is only opening for the first time this month.

Tomato (harvest October–May) and basil (harvest November–May) are both several months into cropping by February. Courgette (harvest November–May) is in the same position. Pumpkin (harvest January–April) is a month into its harvest here, while temperate gardens won't see pumpkin ready until March.

Also Harvestable This Month

Harvest windows are also open this month for broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, capsicum, eggplant, onion, passionfruit and shallot. Onion's roughly 160–200 day maturity and shallot's roughly 180 days both put February near the finish line — this is prime lifting time for whichever of the two you planted earliest.

Timing Notes for Sub-Tropical Gardens

None of this month's sowing list is frost-limited — the zone's frost risk doesn't open until May — so the constraint in February is heat and bolting pressure, not cold. That's the reverse of what drives a lot of this site's temperate and cool/mountain content, where frost dates do most of the work of explaining a month's calendar.

The flip side of that early-sowing advantage is that some crops are also winding down earlier here than elsewhere, cucumber above being the clearest sourced example. Worth keeping in mind before assuming every sub-tropical head start automatically means a longer season all the way through — sometimes it just means the whole cycle, start to finish, has shifted earlier on the calendar rather than stretched out.

Recommended Cultivars

  • Beetroot — Bull's Blood (Kings Seeds NZ, Koanga Institute)
  • Carrot — Akaroa Long Red (Koanga Institute), Amsterdam Sprint (Kings Seeds NZ)
  • Lettuce — Buttercrunch, Coral Red (both Kings Seeds NZ)
  • Peas — Alderman Tall Climbing (Kings Seeds NZ), Amish Snap (Koanga Institute)
  • Silverbeet — Bright Yellow, Ford Hook Giant (both Kings Seeds NZ)
  • Spinach — Bloomsdale (Kings Seeds NZ), Japanese/Lands End (Koanga Institute)

No approved cultivar picks are recorded yet for pak choy or radish in this zone's sourcing.

Know your zone? Explore the full NZ Sub-Tropical Planting Calendar for month-by-month sowing and harvest timing.