What can I plant now?
Find what still has enough season to mature, test the exact days on a seed packet, plan successions, stretch the shoulder season and see what garden work is coming over the next six weeks.
Build today’s garden window
Enter a U.S. city or ZIP. The tool combines local freeze climatology with today’s point in the season and current weather.
Location and privacy
Your browser shares location only after you tap. It is used to resolve nearby conditions and is not included in analytics.
Check a seed packet
Use the maturity number printed on the packet instead of a generic crop average.
Choose a crop to test this packet against today’s season.
The answer will use your location, current conditions and the growing assumptions above.
Packet conventions vary. For crops normally transplanted, “days to maturity” often begins at transplanting; the indoor-start method adds the modeled seedling lead time before that outdoor maturity period.
Today’s strongest moves
Recalculated from today and your growing setup. “Quick harvest” means full maturity no longer fits, but a legitimate baby-leaf, greens or young-root harvest still does.
Direct sow now
Transplant now
Start indoors now
Last call / quick harvest
If you plant now, sow again…
Fall & overwinter garden
Your next 6 weeks
A garden work queue: windows opening, last viable full-harvest starts and repeat-sowing targets.
Work the whole season
See the crop-level decision, last viable start, expected harvest, repeat interval and what can follow after harvest.
| Crop | Today | Spring / method | Fall cutoff | Harvest & succession | Use the bed next | Biology gates |
|---|
Specific cultivar? The seed-packet checker above is the fastest one-crop answer; you can also replace generic maturity days directly in this table.
How serious gardeners stretch a season
Use the actual cultivar
A 48-day cultivar and an 80-day cultivar of the same crop can have different answers late in a season. The packet checker makes that difference explicit.
Repeat small sowings
Fast crops are often more useful as repeated small plantings than one large planting. Repeat dates stop when runway runs out.
Watch what closes next
The six-week queue surfaces upcoming last-start dates so a crop does not quietly age out of the season.
How the plant-today decision works
Season runway, not a calendar square
The engine starts with the crop’s method-specific time to harvest, then asks how much usable season remains. Tender crops must finish before damaging cold risk; hardy crops receive crop-specific cold tolerance.
Fall is slower
Autumn plantings receive a crop-specific slowdown factor and safety buffer because shortening days and cooling temperatures can lengthen calendar time to harvest.
The packet can change the answer
A named cultivar’s maturity number can move the final viable date enough to turn “go” into “last call,” or “last call” into “too late.” The packet value therefore overrides the generic crop maturity only for that focused check.
What the six-week queue does — and does not — know
The queue projects crop-calendar decisions from NOAA freeze climatology, crop biology, cultivar maturity, selected protection and succession cadence. It does not extend today’s NWS forecast beyond its valid window.
After the local fall anchor passes, the spring reference rolls into the next calendar year.
Sources and evidence
- NOAA NCEI 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- National Weather Service API
- University of Minnesota Extension
- University of Illinois Extension
- Penn State Extension
- Colorado State University Extension
- University of Arizona Cooperative Extension
- Oregon State University Extension
- Nebraska Extension
USDA hardiness zone is not the planting-date engine.