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Seasonal garden planner

See the houseplant, vegetable and lawn tasks that fit this time of year, and when to start seeds counted back from your own last-frost date.

Runs in your browser. Nothing you enter is saved or sent to us.

Tell us roughly where you garden and what you grow. You'll get the tasks that fit this time of year, with dates only when you add your own last-frost date.

Where do you garden?
Like 7a. Look it up by ZIP code on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. A zone describes winter cold, not frost dates.
Month-day, like 04-15. Your local extension office or a nearby weather station can give it. Dated tasks need this.
What do you grow?

When should I start seeds?

Pick a crop. With a last-frost date above, you'll get a date range counted back from it; without one, you'll get the rule to apply yourself.

Crop
How you'll plant it
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How it works

Choose what you grow and, if you garden in the US, add your hardiness zone and your average last spring frost. Tasks come from extension calendars and are matched to the month and your region.

  • A hardiness zone describes winter cold, not frost dates, so it never sets a date.
  • Dated tasks, like sowing tomatoes indoors, are counted back from the last-frost date you enter, in whole weeks.
  • Without a frost date you get the condition to watch for instead of a date.

What it can't do

It's planning guidance, not a forecast: a median last-frost date still leaves about a 50% chance of a later frost. Outdoor timing covers the US only, and outside the US it shows houseplant tasks. It doesn't look up your zone from a ZIP code yet.

Sources

  1. USDA Agricultural Research Service: USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (2023): How to Use the Maps
  2. Purdue Extension: HO-14-W Starting Seeds Indoors (R. Lerner, 2020)
  3. UNH Cooperative Extension: Growing Vegetables: When to Plant Your Vegetable Garden [fact sheet]
  4. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach: All About Holiday Cacti