---
title: "Planting Calendar from Your Frost Dates | Civic Seedling"
description: "Enter your last spring and first fall frost dates to see when to sow indoors, plant out and sow outdoors for 37 vegetables and herbs. Free and printable."
url: https://civicseedling.sbs/
---

# Planting calendar from your frost dates

Type in your average last spring frost and first fall frost. The calendar works out when to start seeds indoors, when to plant out and when to sow straight into the ground, for 37 common vegetables and herbs.

## How to read the calendar

Each row is one crop. The purple bar is when to sow seed indoors, the green bar when to set plants outside, and the gold bar when to sow seed straight into the ground. Rows with two gold bars have a spring and a fall sowing. Frost-tender crops such as tomatoes and squash are never scheduled outside before your last frost date. "Tight" or "too short" means a tender crop may not ripen before your first fall frost; choose early varieties or skip it.

## Where to find your frost dates

Use averages for your own area, not a national guess. Your national weather service publishes climate normals, and a local extension office, allotment society or garden centre can usually tell you. In the US, Virginia Cooperative Extension points gardeners to the Midwestern Regional Climate Center's Freeze Date Tool. Remember an average last frost still has about a 50% chance of a later frost, so watch the forecast before planting out.

## Where the numbers come from

Indoor and planting-out timings follow University of New Hampshire Extension, outdoor sowing windows and days to harvest Montana State University Extension, spacing Virginia Cooperative Extension, and soil temperatures Colorado State University Extension. They are regional guides: your soil, slope and the variety on the seed packet all shift the real dates.

## Sources

- University of New Hampshire Extension. *Growing Vegetables: When to Plant Your Vegetable Garden* [fact sheet]. [extension.unh.edu](https://extension.unh.edu/resource/growing-vegetables-when-plant-your-vegetable-garden-fact-sheet)
- Grandpre A. *Can I Grow That Here? Vegetable Seed and Transplant Schedules for Garden or Container*. Montana State University Extension MontGuide MT199308AG, revised 2018. [extension-store.montana.edu](https://extension-store.montana.edu/montguides/can-i-grow-that-here-vegetable-seed-and-transplant-schedules-for-garden-or-container)
- Jadrnicek S, Hessler A. *Virginia’s Home Garden Vegetable Planting Guide: Recommended Planting Dates and Amounts to Plant*. Virginia Cooperative Extension 426-331, 2025 (Table 5). [pubs.ext.vt.edu](https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/426/426-331/426-331.html)
- Whiting D, O’Meara C, Wilson C. *Vegetable Planting Guide*. Colorado State University Extension, GardenNotes #720, 2018, reviewed 2024. [extension.colostate.edu](https://extension.colostate.edu/resource/vegetable-planting-guide/)
- University of Minnesota Extension. *Growing basil*. [extension.umn.edu](https://extension.umn.edu/garden-and-home/yard-and-garden/yard-and-garden-problems/growing-basil)
- University of Minnesota Extension. *Growing parsley*. [extension.umn.edu](https://extension.umn.edu/garden-and-home/yard-and-garden/gardening-in-minnesota/growing-parsley)
- University of Minnesota Extension. *Growing dill in home gardens*. [extension.umn.edu](https://extension.umn.edu/garden-and-home/yard-and-garden/gardening-in-minnesota/growing-dill)
- University of Minnesota Extension. *Growing chives*. [extension.umn.edu](https://extension.umn.edu/garden-and-home/yard-and-garden/gardening-in-minnesota/growing-chives)
- Utah State University Extension. *Cilantro/Coriander in the Garden*. [extension.usu.edu](https://extension.usu.edu/yardandgarden/research/cilantro-coriander-in-the-garden.php)

## More garden planning tools

Each tool has its own page, and all of them keep working offline once loaded.

- [Square-foot garden planner](https://civicseedling.sbs/square-foot-garden-planner/): Lay out raised beds one square foot at a time, with 1, 4, 9 or 16 plants per square.
- [Seed spacing calculator](https://civicseedling.sbs/seed-spacing-calculator/): How many plants fit a bed, a row or an area, in a square or triangular layout.
- [Companion planting chart](https://civicseedling.sbs/companion-planting-chart/): Which pairings have research behind them, which are just practical, and which are myths.
- [Seed starting countdown](https://civicseedling.sbs/seed-starting-countdown/): Dates to sow, harden off and plant out each crop, counted back from your last frost.

## Recommended

Two free tools from elsewhere that are handy when gardening moves online.

### Seed catalogue sign-ups without the inbox clutter

Want a planting guide, a plant-sale ticket or a garden show newsletter just once? Give a temporary address from CleanTempMail: no account needed, and the inbox deletes itself after three days.

[Open a temporary inbox](https://cleantempmail.com/)

### Check a new seed shop before you pay

Found rare seed on a shop you have never heard of? Look its domain up with WebTraceCheck's free DNS and domain lookup before you pay, and open unfamiliar links in its disposable cloud browser, which is deleted after each session.

[Look up a shop's domain](https://webtracecheck.com/dns-lookup)

## Questions

**Does it work in the southern hemisphere?**

Yes. Enter your spring frost (around September or October) and the fall frost in the following year, around April or May. The calendar runs across New Year without trouble.

**What if it never frosts where I live?**

Then a frost-date calendar is the wrong tool. In frost-free climates heat and rainfall set the seasons, so ask a local extension service or garden club for a planting guide.

**Are my dates saved?**

Your frost dates and settings stay in this browser's local storage, so the countdown page can use them too. Nothing is sent anywhere.