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Fall Planting Calendar by Zone (Sow-By Dates for Every USDA Zone)

Last updated: September 20, 2026

Spring planting is forward arithmetic: find the last frost, count out from it, put things in the ground. Fall planting is the reverse, and that is why most people get it wrong. There is no starting gun in August. There is a deadline in October, and every crop has to be in the ground early enough to reach the size you want before that deadline arrives. Sow a week late in spring and you harvest a week late. Sow a week late in fall and you may not harvest at all.

This guide gives you the arithmetic, the per-crop numbers, and the sow-by date for every USDA zone.

Find your first frost date

Everything below counts backward from one number, so start with yours. The zone tables further down use a representative frost date for each zone, which will be within a week or two of your actual ZIP in most of the country, but the lookup is exact.

Enter your US ZIP code for your USDA zone, frost dates & planting calendar.

The formula

Three inputs, one subtraction:

  1. Days to maturity. The number on the seed packet, counted from sowing for direct-sown crops or from transplanting for started ones.
  2. The fall factor: add 14 days. Seed packet numbers are measured in spring conditions, with day length increasing and soil warming. After the September equinox you get shortening days and cooling soil, and the same crop takes roughly two weeks longer. This is standard extension-service guidance, and it is the single correction most people skip.
  3. Frost tolerance: subtract the days the crop keeps going past the first light frost. A first frost is not a wall for everything. Kale and carrots keep growing and holding through it. Lettuce takes a few light frosts and stops. Basil is finished by the first one.

For crops that a light frost kills outright, you add 14 days of margin instead of subtracting anything, because for those the first frost date is a hard deadline and the averages are only averages.

Days before first frost = days to maturity + 14 āˆ’ frost tolerance days

Here is that worked out for the crops worth planting in fall:

CropDays to maturityFrost tolerance (days)Sow this many days before first frost
Radishes282121
Spinach452831
Cilantro451445
Kale602846
Beets552148
Lettuce501450
Carrots702856
Broccoli652158
Peas601460
Beans (bush)55083
Zucchini55083
Cucumbers60088
Tomatoes750103

Notice what the frost-tolerance column does. Radishes and carrots differ by 42 days of maturity but only 35 days of sow-by, because carrots keep sizing up after frost and radishes are already done. And notice the bottom of the table: a fall tomato needs 103 days of clear runway, which is why a second tomato crop is a zone 9 idea and not a zone 5 one.

Sow-by dates for every USDA zone

Read down to your zone and across to your crop. Dates are the last day you can sow and still expect a crop, calculated from the representative first frost for that zone.

ZoneFirst frostRadishesLettuceSpinachCilantroBeetsKalePeasCarrotsBroccoli
3aSep 15Aug 25Jul 27Aug 15Aug 1Jul 29Jul 31Jul 17Jul 21Jul 19
3bSep 18Aug 28Jul 30Aug 18Aug 4Aug 1Aug 3Jul 20Jul 24Jul 22
4aSep 22Sep 1Aug 3Aug 22Aug 8Aug 5Aug 7Jul 24Jul 28Jul 26
4bSep 28Sep 7Aug 9Aug 28Aug 14Aug 11Aug 13Jul 30Aug 3Aug 1
5aOct 3Sep 12Aug 14Sep 2Aug 19Aug 16Aug 18Aug 4Aug 8Aug 6
5bOct 8Sep 17Aug 19Sep 7Aug 24Aug 21Aug 23Aug 9Aug 13Aug 11
6aOct 13Sep 22Aug 24Sep 12Aug 29Aug 26Aug 28Aug 14Aug 18Aug 16
6bOct 18Sep 27Aug 29Sep 17Sep 3Aug 31Sep 2Aug 19Aug 23Aug 21
7aOct 25Oct 4Sep 5Sep 24Sep 10Sep 7Sep 9Aug 26Aug 30Aug 28
7bNov 1Oct 11Sep 12Oct 1Sep 17Sep 14Sep 16Sep 2Sep 6Sep 4
8aNov 8Oct 18Sep 19Oct 8Sep 24Sep 21Sep 23Sep 9Sep 13Sep 11
8bNov 15Oct 25Sep 26Oct 15Oct 1Sep 28Sep 30Sep 16Sep 20Sep 18
9aNov 30Nov 9Oct 11Oct 30Oct 16Oct 13Oct 15Oct 1Oct 5Oct 3
9bDec 10Nov 19Oct 21Nov 9Oct 26Oct 23Oct 25Oct 11Oct 15Oct 13
10aDec 20Nov 29Oct 31Nov 19Nov 5Nov 2Nov 4Oct 21Oct 25Oct 23
10bDec 31Dec 10Nov 11Nov 30Nov 16Nov 13Nov 15Nov 1Nov 5Nov 3
11a and upnoneOct onOct onOct onOct onOct onOct onOct onOct onOct on

What the zones actually mean in practice

Zones 3 to 5. Your fall window is genuinely short and it opens in July, not September. By the time the weather feels like fall planting weather, the deadline has passed for everything except radishes and overwintered spinach. The two fall jobs that still work in late September here are garlic and spinach sown under a row cover to sit dormant and restart in March.

Zones 6 and 7. This is where fall gardening pays best, because the season is long enough for real crops but the summer is hot enough that spring lettuce, spinach and cilantro bolt before they size up. A zone 7a fall lettuce sowing on September 5 matures into cooling weather and holds in the garden for weeks. The same variety sown in spring runs to seed in a fortnight of heat.

Zones 8 to 10. Fall is the main cool-season window, not the shoulder. The first frost is so late that you can sow carrots in early October in zone 9a and still harvest. The real constraint here is the opposite of frost: germinating cool-season seed in soil that is still 90 degrees in September. Shade the seedbed, water twice a day, or start transplants somewhere cooler.

Zones 11 to 13. There is no first frost to count back from, so the table does not apply. In these zones the cool season is the growing season for anything that bolts in heat, and it starts when the heat breaks, roughly October. See the individual zone pages for how that plays out.

Fall peas are the crop people ask about most

Peas are the clearest illustration of why fall timing is different. They want cool weather, so gardeners assume a fall crop is easy. The problem is that the sowing has to happen in the heat of late summer: August 26 in zone 7a, August 14 in zone 6a, August 9 in zone 5b. Pea seed germinates badly above 80 degrees, so the same conditions that make the crop desirable make the planting difficult.

Three things fix it. Sow twice as thickly as you would in spring and accept the germination rate. Soak the seed overnight and plant into a furrow you have watered first, so the seed sits in cool damp soil rather than dry hot soil. And keep the seedbed shaded and damp for the first week, with a board or a scrap of shade cloth laid over the row until you see shoots. Zone-by-zone dates are on the peas page.

If you have missed the date

The dates above are for a full harvest. Missing them by a couple of weeks does not mean nothing happens.

  • Radishes are the shortest crop worth planting and the best insurance. Three weeks of clear weather gets you something.
  • Spinach does not need to mature before winter. Sown four to six weeks before your first frost it makes a small rosette, stalls through the cold, and restarts weeks before you could sow anything in spring. This is the highest-value thing to plant in late September in a cold zone.
  • Salad greens cut small ignore the maturity number entirely. Sow thickly and cut at baby size in half the listed days.
  • A row cover buys about two weeks of effective season at each end, which in zone 6 moves your deadline from late August to mid September for several crops. How to read and stretch your first frost date covers what different covers actually do.
  • Garlic is not late. Late September through November is precisely when it goes in, depending on your zone.

The mistakes that cost a fall crop

Using spring days-to-maturity without the fall factor is the big one, and it is worth 14 days of error in the wrong direction. Planting on a calendar month rather than a frost date is the second: ā€œplant fall crops in Augustā€ is right for zone 5 and a month early for zone 8. Watering like it is October when it is still August is the third, since fall crops germinate in the hottest weeks of the year. And treating the first frost date as a guarantee is the fourth. It is a 50 percent probability, which means half of all years it arrives earlier than the number.

If you are not certain which zone you are in, or what your zone actually measures, start with USDA planting zones explained, then come back to the table above.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate fall planting dates?

Count backward from your average first fall frost. Take the crop's days to maturity, add about 14 days because growth slows as day length drops after the September equinox, then subtract the days the crop keeps producing past a light frost (roughly 28 for carrots, kale and spinach, 21 for beets, broccoli and radishes, 14 for lettuce, cilantro and peas, 0 for anything frost-tender). Tender crops get 14 days of safety margin added instead. The result is how many days before your first frost you must sow.

Is it too late to plant vegetables in September?

In zone 7 and warmer, no. Radishes can go in as late as early October in zone 7a and late October in zone 8b, and spinach, lettuce and cilantro all still have a window through September in those zones. In zones 3 to 5 the September window is mostly closed for a harvest, but it is exactly the right time to plant garlic and to sow spinach for overwintering.

What is the fall factor in planting?

The fall factor is the extra time a crop needs when it matures in autumn rather than spring. Seed packet days-to-maturity numbers assume lengthening days and warming soil. After the equinox you get the opposite, so the same crop takes roughly two extra weeks. Most extension services use 14 days, which is the figure used throughout this calendar.

Which vegetables are best for fall planting?

Radishes, spinach, lettuce, cilantro, beets, kale, peas, broccoli and carrots. All of them either tolerate frost or mature fast enough to beat it, and several taste better from a fall crop because cold weather increases sugar content. Garlic is the other fall crop, but it is planted in fall to harvest the following summer.

Do fall vegetables taste different from spring ones?

Often better. Carrots, kale, beets and parsnips convert stored starch to sugar as soil temperatures drop, which is a real physiological response to freezing risk rather than a gardening myth. Lettuce and spinach also bolt far less in fall, because they finish into cooling weather instead of out of it.