When to Plant
Pick a crop, tell us where you garden, and get real calendar dates: when to start seeds indoors, when to sow straight into the ground, and when it is safe to set transplants out. Spring and fall windows are both shown, because most cool-season crops have two.
Choose your crop and location
Five digits. This sets your average frost dates, which is what the planting windows are measured from.
or
Use this only if you do not know your ZIP code. A zone does not fix your frost dates, so the answer will be broader.
How these dates are calculated
There is no planting date in the abstract. Every window in this tool is an offset from one of two anchors, and the anchors come from your ZIP code:
Spring windows are counted from your average last spring frost. Tomatoes, for example, are started indoors 6 to 8 weeks before it and transplanted 1 to 3 weeks after it. If your last frost is April 15, that is February 18 to March 4 indoors and April 22 to May 6 outdoors.
Fall windows are counted backward from your average first fall frost, using the crop's days to maturity plus a grace period, because plants grow measurably slower as day length drops in autumn. A 55 day crop is not a 55 day crop in September.
The offsets themselves are the conventional ranges published by US cooperative extension services. Where sources genuinely disagree, this tool shows the range rather than picking a winner. Nothing here is a single secret date, and any tool that gives you one is hiding the spread.
In zone 9 and warmer the logic flips. Frost stops being the limit and heat becomes it, so this tool switches those zones to calendar windows and marks the summer gap. See the note that appears on your result.
Planting offsets for every crop
The whole table in one place, in weeks relative to your frost dates. This is the same data the calculator above runs on, so the two can never disagree.
| Crop | Start indoors | Direct sow | Transplant out | Fall sowing |
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Keep planning
Sowing dates are one decision out of four. These are the other three.
Common questions
Why do I get a range of dates instead of one day?
Because a single day would be false precision. Your frost date is itself an average with roughly two weeks of spread in either direction, and the published sowing offsets differ between extension services by a week or more. A window is the honest answer. Plant in the middle of it if you want the safest bet, at the start of it if you are willing to cover for a cold night.
What is the difference between direct sowing and transplanting?
Direct sowing puts the seed straight into the garden bed. Transplanting means the seed was started somewhere warmer and the young plant is moved outside later. Some crops accept either. Root crops such as carrots and parsnips essentially cannot be transplanted, because disturbing the taproot forks it, and that is why this tool shows the rows separately rather than blending them into one date.
I live in Florida. Why does the tool tell me to plant lettuce in October?
Because that is when lettuce grows there. In zone 9 and warmer, cool-season crops are winter crops. The gardening year runs from autumn through spring, and midsummer is the dead spot rather than the peak. Northern advice applied to a Gulf Coast garden gives you a bed of bolted, bitter greens in May. When this tool detects zone 9 or warmer it switches to calendar windows and labels the summer gap explicitly.
Can I really sow the same crop twice in one year?
For a lot of them, yes, and this is the single biggest thing home gardeners leave on the table. Lettuce, spinach, radish, peas, carrots, beets, kale, broccoli, turnips and bush beans all take a second sowing timed to mature in cool autumn weather, and for several of them the fall crop is the better one. The tool shows both windows on the timeline whenever a crop has both.
Why does the fall window close so much earlier than I expect?
Day length. A crop rated at 55 days to maturity was timed in the lengthening days of spring. Sown in late summer, the same crop grows through shortening days and cooling soil, and the real figure stretches by roughly 10 to 14 days. That is why fall windows here are counted back from your first frost with the extra time already added, rather than being days to maturity subtracted straight off the calendar.
How much can I cheat these dates with row cover or a tunnel?
Floating row cover reliably buys a few degrees, which in practice is often a week to ten days at each end of the season. A low tunnel buys more. A cold frame or an unheated greenhouse can shift a zone's worth. None of this is in the tool's numbers, which describe an open, uncovered bed, so treat any protection as a bonus rather than as license to plant a month early.
My soil is still cold and soggy on the date the tool gives me. Now what?
Wait. The calendar is a proxy for soil temperature, not a replacement for it. Beans rot below about 60 degrees Fahrenheit and okra sulks below 65, no matter what the date says. A cheap soil thermometer pushed 3 inches down at mid-morning settles the argument in ten seconds and is the best few dollars in the shed.
Where should I get a figure I can fully trust?
Your county cooperative extension office. Every US county has one, the service is free, and most publish a local planting calendar built from their own station data and decades of trial results in your actual soil. Search your county name plus "extension planting guide". Use this tool to plan; use them to confirm.