Tool

What to plant right now — by USDA zone

Enter your ZIP or pick your zone to see which vegetables, herbs and bulbs are in their planting window this week, counted from your average frost dates.

The tool counts days from your average last spring frost and first fall frost and lists every crop whose window includes today, plus what opens in the next three weeks. If your local frost dates differ from the regional average (you live on a south-facing hill, in a heat island, near a lake), shift the recommendations by 1–2 weeks accordingly.

or

Enter your ZIP code or pick a zone to see what is in its planting window this week.

How this works

We anchor each zone to its average last-spring-frost and first-fall-frost dates, the way every Extension service does:

ZoneLast spring frostFirst fall frostGrowing season
3early Juneearly September~90 days
4late Maymid September~110 days
5mid Maylate September~135 days
6late Aprilmid October~170 days
7mid Aprillate October~195 days
8early Aprilearly November~215 days
9mid Marchlate November~255 days
10FebruaryDecember~300 days
11none (frost-free)noneyear-round

From those two anchors, we calculate when each common crop or ornamental can be sown, transplanted, or installed. The cutoffs follow standard Extension guidance: cool-season crops want soil temps in the 40s–60s, warm-season crops want soil in the 60s–70s, root vegetables and brassicas want a fall finish window of 6–10 weeks before first frost depending on the species.

What is not in the tool

  • Trees and large shrubs — best planted in fall (zones 5–8) or early spring (zones 3–4); the tool does not list these because the window is months long, not weeks long. See the /care/ hub for tree planting timing.
  • Houseplants moved outside — too dependent on your specific microclimate and the species.
  • Bulbs for next year — fall is the right window for spring bulbs, late spring for summer bulbs. The tool lists these only when their window is open.
  • Anything that needs starting indoors 8+ weeks before transplant — the tool tells you when to direct sow or transplant, not when to start seeds indoors. See /tools/seed-start-timeline/ for indoor start dates.

See also