Planting Calendar and Frost Dates for Your ZIP Code
Enter your ZIP code to see the last spring and first fall frost dates at the nearest weather station, and when to start, transplant, and sow each crop at three levels of frost risk.
- Enter your ZIP code. The planner finds the nearest weather station with NOAA frost-date normals.
- Choose a Risk level. Conservative waits longer in spring and stops earlier in fall. Aggressive plants sooner and later, with more chance of frost.
- Pick your Crops, say whether you'll start seeds indoors, and choose the Planting year.
- Read the windows for each crop and the calendar. Print the page, add the dates to your calendar app with the ICS file, or copy the link to come back to the same plan.
How the planner works
The planner uses NOAA's 1991–2020 Climate Normals at the weather station nearest your ZIP code. For each risk level, it takes the date with a 10% (Conservative), 30% (Typical), or 50% (Aggressive) chance of a 32°F frost on or after it in spring, and the same chance of the first 32°F frost on or before it in fall.
Each crop's rules come from university extension publications. They count days or weeks from the average last or first frost, and the planner applies the same count to the frost dates at your risk level. Ranges in the rules become ranges in the windows.
The frost dates are long-term statistics, not a forecast. Hardiness zones are shown on their own: they describe winter lows for perennial plants and aren't used for any planting date. The methods and sources page has the details.