About Garden Advice Guide
Last updated: October 3, 2026
Garden Advice Guide helps you work out when to plant, what to plant now, and when it'll be ready to pick. Type in your ZIP code and the tools build the answer around where you actually live. It's free, with nothing to sign up for.
Who makes it
I'm Joan Ramos. I make small free websites, and I'm not a trained gardener. I'm someone who likes building tools that make everyday things easier.
My first site was Mary's Printables, a little collection of free printable pages. I assumed it would stay quiet. Instead, people wrote in. A teacher had found the very worksheet her class needed. A parent was using a chart with a child who was struggling. Someone had printed what they needed with no time to spare.
Their notes all said the same thing in different ways. The page was there when they needed it, it just worked, and it didn't ask for anything in return. I've built every site since with that in mind.
Why a gardening site
Most planting advice is written for nobody in particular. "Plant tomatoes in spring" means something very different in Maine than it does in Texas. Seed packets give you a range of weeks, but weeks from what?
The answer is almost always your frost dates. Once you know them, most planting decisions fall into place. So I wanted a site that starts with your location and works everything else out from there.
What makes good garden advice
Good garden advice is local, and it's honest that it's an average. A last frost date isn't a promise. It's the date frost usually stops, and some years it won't. The best timing advice gives you a window, not a single day, and tells you what it's counting from.
So treat every date here as a general estimate. Watch your own weather, and for questions about your soil, pests or a sick plant, your local cooperative extension office is a great free resource that knows your area.
What you get
- 11 free tools, including frost dates, planting zones, when to plant, when to harvest and seed starting
- Frost dates by ZIP code, the anchor for nearly every planting decision
- A USDA hardiness zone finder with a full zone chart from 1a to 13b
- Planting windows crop by crop, counted from your own frost dates
- A planting calendar and a full-year schedule for your zone
- Plant spacing, raised bed soil, lawn care and watering helpers
- More than 260 guides on vegetables, flowers, lawns, pests, deer-resistant plants and seasonal jobs
- No sign-up, and every tool works on a phone
If something's off
If your frost dates look wrong for your area, a guide has a mistake, or a tool won't load, email me at [email protected]. I read every message.
Garden Advice Guide is one of a family of free tools I run at FriendlyApps.