Planting Calendar
Pick your ZIP code and a month and get real dates for 50 crops, worked out from your own frost dates rather than the generic month advice every other calendar prints.
Build your planting calendar
How these dates are worked out
Nothing on this page is a generic "plant tomatoes in May". Every date is counted off your own average last spring frost and average first fall frost, shifted by the risk level you chose:
start indoors = last frost - (weeks before last frost)
transplant or direct sow = last frost + (weeks after last frost)
last fall sowing = first frost - (days to maturity + 14)
The 14 extra days on the fall sowing are the short-day allowance. A crop that takes 55 days in June takes longer in September because there is less light and less heat, and every extension service builds in a similar cushion.
Where the crop numbers come from: the sowing windows are the consensus figures published by US cooperative extension services. Where extensions disagree they differ by about a week, which is why every crop below carries a range rather than a single date. Days to maturity varies more than that between varieties, so always check the back of your own seed packet, which beats any table including this one.
Where the frost dates come from: the same regional table the frost date lookup uses, keyed on the first three digits of your ZIP code. Nothing here can disagree with that page because there is only one dataset behind both. See the note on your result for what that does and does not mean.
Crop timing chart: weeks from your last frost
The table the dates above are built from. Negative numbers mean before your last frost, positive mean after. This is the part worth screenshotting, because it works for any location once you know your own frost date.
| Crop | Start indoors | Transplant | Direct sow | Days to maturity |
|---|
Days to maturity is counted from transplanting for crops with an indoor start, and from sowing for the rest. That is the convention seed companies use, and mixing the two is the most common reason a fall crop misses its window.
Keep planning
Every one of these runs off the same frost date table, so nothing here contradicts anything there.
Common questions
Why does this calendar disagree with the one in the back of my seed catalog?
Almost always for one of two reasons. Either the catalog is written for a whole region rather than your ZIP area, or it is using a different frost probability threshold. The two biggest garden sites in the country publish last frost dates about a week apart for the same town for exactly that reason: one prints the 30% date and the other prints the 50% date. Neither says so on the page. This tool lets you pick the threshold yourself and shows you what it costs.
What does the risk setting actually change?
It moves your frost dates, and therefore every single date on the page. At the 50% setting, frost arrives after your last frost date in about one year in two. At the 10% setting the date is pushed roughly two weeks later, frost beats you only about one year in ten, and you pay for that with a shorter season at both ends. There is no correct answer. There is only the trade you want to make.
Can I plant earlier than the calendar says?
Yes, if you cover. Row cover, cloches, low tunnels and black plastic mulch all buy real days, usually two to four degrees of frost protection and warmer soil. A gardener with row cover can work at the 90% setting safely. A gardener with bare beds and no spare seedlings should not.
Why do some crops appear twice in the year?
Because they are worth sowing twice. Lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrots, beets, kale and the other cool-season crops go in early for a spring harvest and again in mid to late summer for a fall harvest, which is often the better of the two because they mature into cooling weather rather than into heat.
Do I count days to maturity from sowing or from transplanting?
From transplanting for anything you started indoors, and from sowing for anything you direct sowed. Seed companies use that convention, and mixing them up is the classic reason a fall crop gets caught by frost three weeks short of ripe.
My area has no frost date at all. What do I do?
Then cold is not your limiting factor and heat is. In zone 10 and warmer the productive season runs through the winter: warm-season crops go in from January, cool-season crops from October, and the middle of summer is the dead season rather than the peak. The calendar switches to that model automatically when your ZIP has no average frost.
How accurate is this for my exact garden?
Accurate to within about one to two weeks, which is the honest resolution of any frost-based calendar. Elevation, slope, pavement, walls and nearby water all move the real dates. After a season of writing down what actually happened in your own beds, your notes beat this table, and you should trust them.