Find out what to plant this month. Enter your ZIP code or USDA hardiness zone and SowWhen builds a free, month-by-month planting calendar: when to start seeds indoors, when to transplant, when to direct-sow, and when to harvest each vegetable and herb for your zone.
Gardening timing is local. The same tomato should be started indoors in March in one region and May in another, because what changes is your frost dates. SowWhen turns your location into those dates and then schedules every crop around them — so instead of guessing from a generic seed packet, you get the right week for where you actually garden. Pick your zone, see the calendar, and check back each month for what to do next.
Whether your tomatoes are behind depends on what you planted. A variety-by-variety reference — determinate vs. indeterminate, days to maturity, height — plus the date to stop new flowers in your zone.
Almost every US gardener can still plant something in August — but what depends on your zone. The zone-by-zone breakdown for USDA zones 3–10, computed from each zone's first fall frost.
Your calendar has four kinds of dates — start indoors, transplant, direct-sow, and harvest. Here's what each means and how to act on it.
Your last spring frost and first fall frost decide when nearly everything gets planted. What they mean, why they're averages, and how to use them.
Which crops to start inside, when to sow, and how to get stocky seedlings instead of pale, leggy ones — light, warmth, water, and timing.
Some seeds resent being moved; others need a head start indoors. Matching the method to the crop is the difference between a full bed and a row of gaps.
Your hardiness zone is the foundation of every planting decision. What the number tells you, what it doesn't, and how to use it well.
A single sowing of lettuce or beans floods you for two weeks, then quits. Succession planting trades the glut for a steady supply.
Many gardeners stop sowing at midsummer and miss an entire second season. Counting back from your first fall frost opens up months of crops.
Indoor-raised seedlings aren't ready for direct sun and wind. A week of gradual exposure prevents the transplant shock that stalls plants for weeks.
Enter your ZIP code or USDA hardiness zone and SowWhen looks up your average last spring frost and first fall frost dates, then applies each crop's timing rules — start indoors, transplant, direct-sow, and harvest windows — to build a month-by-month calendar for your location.
Yes. The planting calendar is completely free and needs no account. You can bookmark your zone's calendar, export it to your phone's calendar, or print it.
It is a region defined by its average coldest winter temperature, used to tell which plants survive the winter where you live. SowWhen uses your zone to derive the frost dates that drive your planting schedule.
SowWhen covers common vegetables and herbs across all U.S. hardiness zones, grouped by category, each with its planting windows and days to maturity for your zone.
SowWhen is a free tool for U.S. gardeners. Planting windows are estimates based on average frost dates; local weather varies year to year.