Last Frost Date

What to plant, month by month

Last checked October 25, 2026

"Plant peas in March" is good advice in some places and bad advice in others. What really sets the calendar is your frost dates. Here's the gardening year counted from them, then a real example, month by month.

Why months depend on where you live

Among the 206 places with their own page here that get a frost every year, the typical last frost runs from February 21 in Mobile, Alabama to June 6 in Bend, Oregon. A month-by-month list written for one of those places would be wrong for the others. So below, each step is counted in weeks from your typical last frost, using the planting guide published by Colorado State University Extension, and for fall crops in days back from your first frost, using Virginia Cooperative Extension's method. Your own calendar, with real dates, is one ZIP code lookup away.

Late winter: 7 to 11 weeks before the last frost

Start broccoli and cabbage indoors. They go out early, 2 to 4 weeks before the typical last frost, and want to be 5 to 7 weeks old when they do.

A little later, start cauliflower, which goes out up to 2 weeks before the last frost.

4 to 9 weeks before

Start eggplant and peppers indoors. Both are slow and go out 2 weeks or more after the last frost, at 6 to 9 weeks (eggplant) and 6 to 8 weeks (peppers) old.

3 to 5 weeks before

Start tomatoes indoors. They go out at 5 to 7 weeks old, 2 weeks or more after the typical last frost. Our guide to starting seeds indoors covers light, warmth and hardening off.

2 to 4 weeks before

The first outdoor planting. Colorado State calls these crops hardy: they grow in days as cool as 40°F and may survive a frosty night. As soon as the soil dries enough to work, sow peas, spinach, leaf lettuce, radishes, turnips and kohlrabi, plant onion sets, and set out your broccoli and cabbage transplants.

Up to 2 weeks before

The semi-hardy crops: beets, carrots, potatoes, Swiss chard and parsnips, and cauliflower transplants. They grow in cool weather but take a frosty night less well than the hardy group.

Around the last frost

Sow the tender crops from seed: snap beans, sweet corn, cucumbers and summer squash. If you're setting out cucumber or squash transplants rather than seeds, Colorado State advises waiting until the frost risk is over, unless you can cover them.

2 weeks or more after

The very tender crops, which can't take frost or even cold spring winds: plant out tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, and sow melons, winter squash, pumpkins and lima beans. Colorado State says to wait until days are reliably above 55°F; a week of cooler days can stunt them.

Midsummer: fall crops

Now count back from your first fall frost. Virginia Cooperative Extension's method: take the crop's days to harvest, add about two weeks because growth slows in the shorter, cooler days of fall, and add two more weeks for crops that frost kills. The result is how many days before the typical first frost to sow. Spinach, at about 40 days to harvest, goes in about 54 days before the first frost; snap beans, at about 60 days and frost-tender, about 88 days before. Our guide to fall planting has more.

Around the first frost

Pick tender crops before a frost, and cover the ones still ripening. Where winters are hard, plant garlic one or two weeks after the first killing frost, as University of Minnesota Extension advises for Minnesota. Plant spring bulbs once the soil has cooled to about 50 to 55°F, until a couple of weeks before the ground freezes, according to University of Wisconsin–Madison Extension.

A real year, month by month

Here is the whole year for Columbus, Ohio, where the typical last frost is April 18 and the typical first frost October 27.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

Your year will run earlier or later, depending on your frost dates, but in the same order. Look up your ZIP code for your own month-by-month calendar, and print it from your nearest place's page.

Sources

More guides: What your last frost date really means · Hardiness zones, and what changed on the 2023 map · How to protect plants from a late frost · Starting seeds indoors: when and how