When to Start a Vegetable Garden – Best Time to Plant a Garden?

What is the best time to start a vegetable garden? Of course, the answer is that it depends. It depends on what the crops are and what part of the country you are in. Let’s break it down and get the answer for when is the best time for you to start a garden.

First, you should have an idea of what the Hardiness zone is for your area. You can easily go here to look up your hardiness zone by zipcode. That hardiness zone is based on average lowest temperature for that area, which corresponds roughly to the average last frost date for your area. The most foolproof way to determine when to plant individual plants is to look on the seed packets for the hardiness zone for your area.

Another way of determining a good date is actually basing it off the last frost day. This can be found at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/freezefrost/frostfreemaps.html . Here is a direct link to a high res jpeg of the map of the US

Once you know the average last frost date, determine what kind of crop you want to plant:

Cool Weather Crops – These tolerate cold fairly well, and can even take a frost in stride. This includes the kale crops (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc.) along with onions and garlic. Many types of lettuce and spinach fall into this category. If the ground’s not frozen and can be tilled it’s likely late enough for these go into the garden, but a good rule of thumb is as early as a month before the last frost date.

Tender Crops – These don’t tolerate a frost, and need protection, but will grow in cooler temperatures and can be set out within a couple of weeks of the last frost date.

Warm Weather Crops – These not only don’t tolerate a frost, but need warmer weather (often 70 degrees or more) to grow anyhow, so there’s not much advantage to trying to put them out early. Tomatoes, peppers, corn, okra, eggplant are examples of these.

Filed under Growing Vegetables by

Comments on When to Start a Vegetable Garden – Best Time to Plant a Garden? »

January 31, 2010

betty wilison @ 12:28 pm

when do i start my garden ??? im in colleycille texas and the weather is differnt than usual so when do i start my garden ?
thanks *betty W

February 1, 2010

John @ 7:31 pm

Check your last frost date, and don’t pay too much attention to the weather right now. The one thing you know is the weather is going to change. The charts assume that the weather will vary somewhat like it has over the years. Your average last frost date is in the middle of March, so you should think about putting out your cold crops like onions and broccoli in the middle of February ( I won’t look up everyone’s but I happen to know your area pretty well.)

March 4, 2010

Mattie Garris @ 8:24 pm

when is the best time to plant collars green,tomatoes,
cabbage,Broccoli,green pepper, cucumber

I live in Rantoul, Ill. 61866

What do You Think? Leave a Comment

MATERIAL CONNECTION DISCLOSURE: You should assume that the author of this content has an affiliate relationship and/or another material connection to the providers of goods and services mentioned in this content and may be compensated when you purchase from a provider. You should always perform due diligence before buying goods or services from anyone via the Internet or offline.
Register Login